The Sin Eater
by MarquessaS
Summary: The Winchester brothers drive through the Adirondacks en route to a meeting with Bobby. Ahead of schedule, they stop in a tiny Pennsylvania mountain crossroads, lured by the intrigue of a hunt. Better they should have kept driving.
1. Chapter 1

The Sin Eater

1

''How far 'til Bradford?" Dean asked.

They'd been on the road for days, and the charm was wearing thin. Sam unfolded his map of Pennsylvania once again, sighing with his own road-weariness. "About three hours. There's a little fly-speck of a town coming up; Spencerville. I wouldn't mind stopping, I could use a coffee."

Dean nodded. _Yeah-a shot of caffeine would be a good idea about now_. They were scheduled to meet up with Bobby in Bradford, at his request. Something to do with demons, some signs. Dean was loathe to address anything hell-related at the moment; it was all still pretty fresh. He'd only just regained his brother from the otherworld, and he wasn't in any state of mind, after everything, to deal with the ugly reality that he'd brought down on his own head. But Bobby Singer could ask him to send his right arm gift-wrapped, and he'd do it without question. Sam felt likewise.

They were driving through some breathtaking country. The Adirondack hills were beautiful in any season, but particularly so now, in the waning summer. Here and there were hints of the scarlet that the maples would explode into later, surrounded by deep, verdent green. It was lovely country to retire in, if you had money. Not so romantic for those who were born here. Generations lived and died in poverty in the hills. There was forestry, but little else to sustain anything beyond subsistence. And mills were closing left and right, throwing more and more of the current generation into dire straits. Farming opportunities were almost nil; the land was too hilly and rocky. There were little plots, carved out in the 1800's, between hills and ravines, just enough to grow a few things for the family's use. The mines that made hiking treacherous were all played out. The only thing that had sustained the people here now was oil. Small, backyard oil rigs dotted the view, some moving slowly up and down, pulling the precious commodity from the depths, but most sat rusting and silent, shut down by the Environmental Protection Agency.

A shabby little restaurant came into view. No cars graced its weedy parking lot, and Dean slowed as they drove past. "Looks closed. Shit... I really have to take a leak." He pulled over and backed up, stopping in front of the abandoned building. He ducked behind it to relieve himself, and as he did, a pickup truck slowed and stopped on the road. An unfriendly looking man called out to Sam, who sat waiting.

"That place is closed. What do you want there?"

Sam pasted on his most innocuous smile. "Just looking for a coffee. Any place around here to grab one?"

The man sized him up, his frosty demeanor remaining unchanged. "Post office, up ahead a mile." With that curt statement, he pulled away and left. Sam whistled, as Dean re entered the car. "What'd he want?"

"To make sure we weren't strangers robbing the place. I asked him where we could grab something to drink, he said the post office coming up. _Friendly_ bastard." he snorted.

"What, he didn't even melt a little at your dewy puppy eyes..?"

"Shut up, you freak. The place is a mile up the road. Maybe somebody there knows where there's a motel somewhere near. I don't know about you but I need to be horizontal for a while."

Dean grunted his agreement. After a few minutes, the building in question came into view. It was an old frame general store, with the post office being its main function these days. It seemed it was still the social hub of the community, such as it was. There were a number of pick-ups out front, several of which carried plywood crates with baying hounds as their cargo. Sam chose to stay behind. "Coffee, and see if they have anything like those pepperettes or something."

Dean nodded and headed inside.

* * *

><p>The place was as he expected. The post office took most of the counter, along with an ancient cash register and a collection of lottery tickets. The walls were lined with hunting and fishing needs, some stale looking loaves of bread, and chips. The coffee maker was at one wall, a throng of scruffy, bearded men standing around it. He had to excuse himself to get at it, and they seemed reluctant to let him pass. At least he thought so. Their cold appraisal of him made him nervous, he didn't know why. But he smiled warmly and made a lame comment about the weather as he poured out two coffees. No one answered, they just turned away in disinterest.<p>

The coffee was so black and cooked smelling that he added extra sugar and cream, stacked the cups, and carried them along as he went in search of some snacks. The group of men were grimly discussing events of the previous days, Dean couldn't help but overhear.

"..I'm telling you, Frank; that place ain't right. Bert knew how to use that tractor, he woulda never took it near that slope. And lookit Dale...half his hand gone. Him too; been using a chainsaw since he was a kid, for christs sake, He don't make that kinda mistake."

The one called Frank grunted. "Them chains just broke off that load of logs, too. You see those links? Nuthin shoulda snapped them, they were so thick. Baker was nearly flattened when they came off that trailer. He was damned lucky."

"What's Alice gonna do now...hire somebody to finish clearing that lot? With Bert gone, she can't afford to quit that contract. That rich bastard from New York will probably kill the sale, and then she'll have piss-all."

There was general agreement to that. One of the men piped up; "Well,_ I_ sure as hell ain't gonna do it. I could use the money as much as anybody, but not if it's gonna cost me so dear. She can hire somebody that don't know the history..."

Dean's curiosity overtook his caution. It sounded to him that something odd was going on, something right up their alley. He decided to learn more. He unloaded his armload onto the counter and paid for it. At least the woman behind the counter was friendly enough. He asked her about a motel, and she laughed.

"Well there's nothing like that, 'til Bradford. You can go check with May Adams; she keeps a couple of rooms for boarders and such. She might have room for you. Just head left after the blue house down the road; you'll see her sign. They're not fancy, but they're clean. How long you planning to stay?"

Dean smiled and thanked her. "Just one night. We've been driving for a while, supposed to meet a buddy of ours in Bradford. But since that's still a few hours away, we figured maybe we'd put up for the night."

"Well that sounds wise. Best not to drive at dusk on these roads, the deer are all over them at this time of year. You take care, now."

* * *

><p>He nodded and turned to the men. "Hey, listen, I couldn't help but hear you talking. Something strange going on?"<p>

They stared at him. "What's it to you?"

Dean was taken aback by their raw hostility. "Nothing. Just overheard, and it's my business to check things out." He reached into his coat and withdrew his wallet, and showed his federal badge. It was a mistake.

"Fed, huh?" the one named Frank said. "Well, you got no business round here, Mr. Federal Agent. Ain't nothing going on 'cept an accident, and folks mourning a good man. Nuthin here to tax, nuthin to legislate, nuthin to investigate, you got that? This ain't no government business."

Dean was very aware that he was outnumbered. Even the lady that had been so forthcoming moments ago was now staring at him coldly. He wisely backed off.

"Relax, Buddy; I'm not here to interfere with you people. Sorry to have bothered you all." He smiled benignly, nodded to them, and backed out of the store. He returned to the car, tossing the sack to Sam and handing him the cups.

* * *

><p>"Whoa...I was about as welcome in there as a freaking dentist. You should've seen that group of toothless mouth breathers, Sam; the second I identified myself as a Fed, they went all <em>Deliverence<em>.

Sam glanced back. "Well, they're coming out, and they don't look like a welcoming committee. Better go."

Dean put it in gear and drove away, leaving the grim group of men standing, staring at them with arms crossed.

"Why'd you pull a badge anyway?" Sam wondered.

"They were all going on about some incident yesterday. Some local guy got squashed; he rolled his backhoe. Might've just been an accident, except they were saying that it was the fourth major thing to happen on that land in the past week. The dead guy had just sold the plot, and was clearing it for the new owner to build, and they've had nothing but bad luck trying to work it. Since we're a few days ahead of Bobby, I thought it was worth looking into. What do you think?"

"I don't know...could be a waste of time. What other things happened?"

"Equipment failures; a truck broke an axle for no reason, chains broke on a trailer of house logs and nearly pancaked some jerk. Oh, and some poor SOB cut off half his hand with a chainsaw. That's a little weird, I'd say. Can't chalk all that up to murphy's law."

"Ouch!" Sam snorted. "Guess he won't be playing that banjo anymore. So how'd you piss them off so fast in there, anyway?"

Dean offered a wounded expression. "I didn't do anything! Geez, it's not like I'm always looking for a fight!"

"No, but you do have a certain manner."

Dean frowned, still indignant "Yeah, well... all I did was flash my badge and ask about it. They all clammed up, and got pretty hostile as soon as _Fed_ came up. I thought I was going to get lynched."

Sam stretched and yawned, trying to get comfortable after so many hours in the car. "Well, we're in hill country now, Dean. It's an old area; historically resistant to government interference. Don't take it personally; you're just a _revenuer_ to them. Just watch your back when you're around any of them, or you might get a load of buckshot in your ass."

* * *

><p>Dean was still peeved when they located May Adam's place. Sam told him he would speak to her, worrying that Dean would alienate another local with the mood he was in. He waited in the car. Within a few minutes, Sam stepped out and waved to him to bring their gear. The room they'd gotten was at the back of the farmhouse, thankfully with it's own access and bathroom. Dean was relieved, the last thing he wanted was to have to go through some flowery, knick-knack-laden parlour with some old hag sitting crocheting or something, just to get to a can.<p>

"So what's this gonna cost?" he asked sourly.

"Forty-five per night. Can't beat that, Dean."

Dean had to agree; it was particularly reasonable. They settled in to the room, hauling in the essentials and locking up the rest. "So what's this May like?" Dean asked hopefully.

Sam laughed. "Depends on what your fetishes are, Dean. You like wrinkles? Facial hair? Or maybe nice big gummy smiles."

Dean shuddered visibly. "Ugh. It's been a while, but I'm not _that _desperate." He rolled over and closed his eyes for a moment, groaning. "Christ; I can still see broken yellow lines. Is there anywhere around here that I can pick up something stronger than bad rot-gut coffee?"

"Good question. We didn't pass any stores or anything, but the people around here must be able to buy stuff closer than Bradford. Wasn't there anything in the post office?"

Dean wracked his brain. "I saw a bunch of shit, but I didn't see any bottles. But from the looks of the clientelle, they weren't tea-totallers. I don't know; maybe they brew their own around here."

"Could be, Dean." Sam reached into his own bag, retrieving something, which he proudly handed over. "By the way, Merry Christmas."

Dean was delighted at the bottle of Jack Daniels. "Hey! Way to go! What made you get this?"

Sam looked at him a little shyly. "Nothing. I picked it up because it was on sale."

"Liar!" Dean grinned. He was beyond pleased that Sam had thought of him. He knew his younger brother would rather drink bleach than something with the bite and personality of this particular poison. He put it aside, still smiling like a cheshire cat.


	2. Chapter 2

2

May Adams came around, knocking on their door and entering before they had a chance to reply. She was exactly as Sam had described; a woman who had a lifetime of toil etched on her face. Her age was a mystery. "Hello boys. Just thought I would advise you of my rules. No guests, no dogs, nuthin other than tobacco. And keep it quiet, thank you. Now, if you're hungry, there's snacks and such at the post office, and you got a hot plate there, but there ain't no restaurants or nuthin til Bradford. Now, I will have a nice stew done by evening, you can have a couple of bowls for $5 apiece. Just let me know." She smiled briefly, at least that was the intent; they couldn't be sure, as it came across more like gurning. She left before they had a chance to respond.

When she was safely out of earshot, they couldn't help but snicker. Dean was game; he was hungry now and stew, no matter what the hell was in it, sounded pretty damned good. Sam was a little concerned that there'd be porcupine quills in it.

"Aw don't be such a princess, Sammy. Stew's great, no matter what. It's like anything; just don't over-think it and you'll enjoy it."

Sam made a face. His philosophies were polar opposites to those of his brother. He vowed to make lunch himself at least. He settled on his own bed, stretching out. "So...now what? Snooze?"

Dean shook his head. "Nah, I'm too wired. You can snooze if you want. I might take a drive over to that lot. Maybe I can see if there's anything worth staying around for."

Sam raised up onto an elbow. "Do you even know where it is?"

"I thought I heard something about the highway; they said something about Molly's. Wasn't that the name of that restaurant that was closed up?"

Sam couldn't remember. "I don't know. Why don't you just relax, Dean? We'll meet up with Bobby in a couple of days; there's hardly any time to chase anything right now anyway."

Dean slumped back onto his bed. "Yeah, maybe. Bobby seemed pretty keyed up. I don't want to get in the way of whatever he was looking into." He sighed and fiddled with the band at his wrist. The reality was, he'd give anything to avoid addressing whatever Bobby was researching. Hell, all he'd gotten was one damned year; couldn't he just revel in his little victory for a while? He lay, wide-eyed and anxious, while Sam's breathing evened out into soft snores. It had been a long drive.

He almost drifted off, when May returned. She entered with her usual abruptness, one knock and no other warning. He made a mental note to push a dresser in front of the door in future.

"I almost forgot. Got a wake to go to tonight. If you want that stew, you'll have to serve yourself, it's on low on the stove. Just go on round to the front if you like, but mind Angus, he's nervous about strangers. I'll be at Munro's 'til nine or so. Poor man. Don't know how Alice will make do now." She turned to go again, but Dean stopped her.

"Ma'am, we heard about the accident. We're sorry about your friend; sounds like he met up with some bad luck." It was a calculated attempt, he figured she was either going to be closed-mouthed about it, or a gossip. Luckily, it was the latter.

"Oh my, yes! Poor man. You know, we all told him he was playing with fire with that piece of land, after everything. Sure, he got it for a song; back-taxes, you know...but you couldn't pay me enough to set foot up there. Some things are just better left alone."

Dean would have loved some further clarification, but she swept out again. He exchanged a look with Sam. "So? Enough to go explore a little..?"

Sam shrugged. "I told you Dean; you go right ahead. I'm staying here and crashing for a while. I'll go with you later if you want, but not right now."

Dean huffed with annoyed impatience. "_God_ you're a pansy. I can't sit still after that last couple of coffees. Stay here then, get your beauty sleep. I'm going to go for a drive."

Sam raised his head. "Stay in touch, at least. And don't stay away too long; come back for three and I'll have some lunch ready."

Dean discarded his jacket, as it was too warm for anything other than his long sleeved tee. "Yes, dear. Bye, honey." he grinned as he left.

"And don't piss any more people off!" Sam yelled after him.

It was acknowledged with a middle finger salute.

* * *

><p>Sam lay awake for a while. He worried about his brother, about his state of mind. Sam was so conflicted; the sacrifice Dean had made, selling his soul to return Sam to the living world...it was too dear, and one that Sam wasn't sure, deep down, that he would have made in the same situation. That admission filled him with a guilt that cut so sharply that he turned his mind away from it. And he knew exactly how his brother's mind worked. Anytime he was worried or bothered, he sought out some distraction, often with less than ideal results. Some female companionship would have been a good thing for him, but so far, the only woman they'd met was May Adams. But this little foray seemed safe enough, at least it kept him occupied and out from under the unfriendly scrutiny of the locals.<p>

He was looking forward to talking with Bobby, alone. Genius came in odd packages sometimes, and Bobby always had a way of putting things in perspective, of slowing it all down and clarifying it. Sam needed that, because right now he was so damned filled with guilt and anger and stomach clenching turmoil, and the last person he could open up to was Dean. Everytime he looked at his older brother, he wanted to simultaneously hug him, and punch the daylights out of him.

He sighed for the hundredth time and finally gave in to exhaustion.

* * *

><p>Dean cursed, annoyed that he would have to leave the Impala behind and walk in. The road was just too rough; only recently forged through the forest. He parked it and got out, surveying the place. Lots of trees, maples, birch. The forested mountain rose sharply ahead, but the ground here was rolling. Here and there were flatter spots, edged by small ravines. It was beautiful country, perfect for some massive log house. He opened the trunk, retrieving the EMF unit and a salt gun. If something weird was going on, he didn't want to be caught unprepared. Same reason stood for the handgun at his waist; living or otherwise, they were all pretty damned odd and unfriendly around here.<p>

He trudged along the rock-strewn road. Half way, he came across the disheveled pile of logs that had broken loose from their transport. They were damaged and muddy, but he could see the fine workmanship; each skillfully coped and dovetailed, ready to be snapped together like Lego. He whistled in admiration; the logs were huge, some more than two feet wide. Definitely not local trees. One of the yokels had said they were trucked all the way in from the west coast. The new owner obviously had some money. He leaned and picked up a section of broken chain. Heavy, solid steel links; they were of a size that he would have thought impossible to break under any circumstance. He dropped the piece and continued on.

The leaves were only just starting to show hints of turning, and everything was still predominently green. The air was warm, and smelled spicy and fresh...woodsy. The sun made bright, dappled patterns where it shone through the trees, and if it weren't for the whining halo of midges following him, he might have actually enjoyed the hike. As he neared the end of the steadily rising road, the land opened up. There was a clearing here, but it wasn't recent. He stood and scanned, looking for the backhoe, but it wasn't visible. He could see that this must have been some old homestead. The grass was tall, and golden with late season maturity. There were lines of stone peeking out of it; walls, or old foundations. Here and there, he could see collapsed piles of weathered grey wood that used to be outbuildings. There was no evidence of a house standing, just a rectangle of stacked stone. It was fairly flat and level; there really wasn't any reason for trucks to be snapping axles on this terrain. The EMF remained silent. He walked through the grass, noting the remains of some old, small orchard. There were a few trees left, gnarled and twisted now with age. They hadn't been properly pruned for decades; thick sucker branch growth obscured their original form. But they still had healthy crowns of leaves, starting to speckle with brown. Yellow apples, stunted and pock-marked, hung from the branches. He reached out and pulled one off, and bit off a chunk. Despite its homely, un-tended appearance, it was perfectly ripe and sweet. He ate the good parts, avoiding the spots that looked occupied, and tossed the core away.

Now he could see where the clearing work was being done. A swath of level, fresh earth was carved beyond the apple trees. It extended to the clearing's horizon, where a ravine defined the edge. He followed it, and peered down the shadowy slope. The rusted yellow backhoe was there, lying on its side at the end of a scraped scar running half way down the ravine's side. It was pure luck that it had stopped where it was; a few slender trunks were all that held it from grinding all the way to the bottom. Dean wondered what the hell the guy was thinking, driving that machine down a slope like this. It was obviously too steep for that kind of equipment. He decided to look more closely at it and he stepped over the edge and slid down, grabbing the edge of the backhoe bucket to keep from skidding into the creek at the bottom. It shifted and moved a few inches at his touch, and he let go in a hurry, in case the wreck decided to acquiesce to gravity and head all the way down. The machine was dented and scraped, and smeared all over with soil; it had obviously rolled a few times. The stink of leaking diesel fuel surrounded it. He circled it, examining it for damage. It was an old John Deere, pretty much at the end of its useful lifespan. Well, _now_, for sure. He could see shovel marks, where they'd dug the poor bastard out from under the it. There was still blood spatter crusted on the yellow paint. -_Oh yeah...closed casket_- Dean thought grimly. Nobody could have survived that. He paused at the place, and knelt, examining a curiously organized little pile of the yellow apples from above. -_maybe some rodent's stash- _He made his way around to the front again. The big earth trough was dented; there was a piece of grey stone stuck in the rusted edge. Dean pried it out, stepping back nervously as the machine shuddered and ground a further few inches down the slope. He peered at it closely. It was marble, and showed a mason's tool marks. It was too smooth for a foundation stone. He turned it over, and saw the distinct shape of incised carving. Half of an 'S'. Oh yeah; this was definitely part of a headstone. Dean had his _ah-ha_ moment.

It was a little clearer now just what could be behind the rash of bad luck. It seemed somebody didn't want to be disturbed.


	3. Chapter 3

3

Dean scrambled back up the slope, returning to the sunny clearing. He ducked the scratchy apple branches reaching out from the trees where the backhoe had gone over, looking for the rest of the stone. It didn't take long before he found it. It stood at the base of one of the trunks, near the clearing's edge. Old hand-tooled local stone, from the late 1800's by his reckoning. He was amazed that it still stood straight after being struck; he would've bet on the backhoe winning that battle. It was a small marker; spare and simple, one that showed more duty than love in its erection. He crouched to read the name. He read it over twice. It wasn't a typical name; wasn't a name at all, as far as he could tell. He placed the fragment against the place where it had been knocked off.

SIN EATER. That was all it said...sin eater, carved in unadorned block letters. Dean tossed the piece back to the base of the stone and stood, perplexed. -_Weird thing to put on a gravestone- _He checked again, front and back, and dug away at the stone base, just to make sure he wasn't missing any other wording, but nothing was revealed. It was just those two enigmatic words. It could be a name...maybe Sin was short for something, like Sinead. And people had all sorts of stupid surnames. He decided to call Sam.

"Hey. You awake?"

_"I am now.. Find anything?"_

"Yeah. It was just off the highway, west of that closed restaurant we saw. Seems like some old homestead. I found the backhoe; looks like it was clearing land when it hit a gravestone. The gravestone won; the tractor's upside-down in a gully."

"_Huh. Could you read it? Are you picking up any EMF static? Do you really think there's enough to keep us here?"`_

Dean swatted with annoyance at the cloud of insects. "Yeah, I'd say so. From what I can see, this should have been fairly easy for them to clear and build. EMF's quiet, but there's not much reason for any of the shit that happened. And get this; the words on the stone are Sin Eater...nothing else."

"_Sin Eater? No other name?"_

"Nope. Any chance that it could be one?"

_"I don't know. Pretty weird. Want me to check those words while you wait?"_

"Yeah, do that. You might as well earn your keep."

"_har har. Hang on while I type this in." _Sam googled the words and instantly, a wealth of information sprang up. _"Ok; it's not a name. It's a ritualistic or superstitious practice. It's old, but I don't know if anybody still does it. Looks like it was done in places like Wales, and then spread to the New World, especially poorer areas, where money and education were limited..."_

"Well what the hell is it?" Dean demanded impatiently.

_"I'm getting to it! Ok, sin-eating was a means for a dead person to be absolved of their wrong doings. A bowl of beer and a loaf of bread would be placed on the deceased's abdomen, and then the sin eater would come. He'd be given some money, and with some ritual words, the sins of the dead guy would be transferred into the food. Then the sin eater would...well, eat them, and the sins along with it. They believed that the responsibilities for the sins were then assumed by the sin-eater. These guys were pariahs, Dean. A necessary evil, in their community's eyes. They were shunned and avoided, and the only time they were wanted was when somebody died."_

"Really. Well that's pretty crappy. Why the hell would they do that, then?"

_"It says here that it was usually the poorest of society...you know, desperate people who'd been reduced to doing pretty much anything for a buck. That, and sometimes a loving relative that was thrown into the position of eat the sins or let the dead loved one go to hell."_

Dean grunted. This hit a little too close to home for his comfort. "Poor bastard. So the guy buried here was some lonely, shunned loser in life. They didn't even have the decency to write his name on his stone, for shit's sake. And then he died, and probably nobody came. I wonder if anybody ate _his_ sins... At least he got a headstone. Any chance of getting a name some other way?"

"_Maybe through local archives. Not likely that anything from this area will be online, but all the birth, death, and property records will be stored somewhere nearby. It'll mean a drive, and some time in local libraries, or some town hall.."_

"Well your day's shaping up just right then, isn't it, Professor Sammy? I guess I should head back then. You're going to need wheels for your research, and I'm starving."

_"I can make us some KD. How long until you get back here?"_

"I don't know. Maybe a half hour. I'll just do a quick check around here to see if any other name or anything turns up. Not much left here, the old site was pretty much abandoned. I don't know why people didn't keep living here, it has an amazing view. There's no mystery as to why the rich guy wanted to build his log paradise here. May Adams said that this dead backhoe driver guy, Bert Munro, bought the land for back-taxes. Sounds like nobody else around here would touch it with a ten foot pole. You think it was because of the sin-eater thing?"

Sam didn't know. _"Maybe. Superstitions run deep, even if people don't even remember the origins. I'll do what I can online, but like I said; most of this will be leg-work. Get here soon, will you? Otherwise lunch will be congealed and gross_."

Dean agreed and hung up.

* * *

><p>Sam waited a short while, then put the water on to boil. While he waited, he roamed online in search of information about the odd practice of sin-eating, and he tried to find any important anecdotal material for the area. Unfortunately there was little; this particular stretch of land was still fairly rooted in an older way of living, and internet had little meaning here. The best he could do was locate the nearest libraries and town halls, it would be the to start researching. Of course, they could always ask a local person, but somehow he felt that they would be met with more resistance and dead ends that way. They sure seemed protective of their privacy. Unless you could prove that you were a blood relative, you were an outsider, and apparently that meant you were going to stay on the outside.<p>

* * *

><p>Dean slipped his phone back into his jeans pocket. So sin-eater was a title rather than a name. He wondered what had brought the person to becoming one. And how he died. Judging from his unsympathetic grave marker, it was probably alone. Somebody saw fit to put him here and mark his presence, but neglected to add the personal touch of his real name. He realized that the sin-eater was probably deemed too 'unclean' to be placed in a churchyard. So much for his sacrifice, it sure didn't seem to get him much in life, and not a helluva lot more in death..<p>

He was hungry. He decided he's poke around the foundations quickly, just to see if there was anything there that could shed light on the person buried in this lonely place. The grass was so tall, it obscured much of the ground. He found the well, and what must have been a stable, judging from the old pieces of tack that still sat in moldering piles where they'd fallen from the collapsed walls. There was nothing left of the house; he found plenty of evidence that it had burned long ago. Satisfied that he'd seen anything of potential interest, he snagged another apple and headed toward the other end of the clearing, where the road entered.

..._sinner..._

It was a whisper, barely audible. Dean whipped around, seeing nothing. He wasn't even sure he'd heard it. Until the second time...

..._sinner..._

He was sure he heard it right. It was a drawn out whisper; it seemed to float down on the wind, like it was breathed out. The hairs rose on the back of his neck. He wished he could see the car, but it's comforting shape was out of view. He dropped the apple and stepped up his pace, clutching the salt gun nervously. He heard it again, and was sure now that the air had cooled around him for a moment. -_Definitely a presence_- He stopped, holding the gun ready, and scanned around the sunny meadow. It seemed peaceful, nothing indicated anything unusual. As he stood, waiting, all he heard was the buzz of insects, or the distant song of a bird. The breeze was gentle and pleasantly warm. He was tempted to believe he was imagining it, when the EMF chirped. He glanced down at it, and saw the brief flash of warning lights. It stayed still for a moment, he shook it in case it was malfunctioning. But then it began to scream.

..._SINNER..._

The whisper was loud this time, a sharp hiss, it felt like the speaker was right on top of him. Dean ducked automatically and stepped away. He spun and levelled the gun, but saw nothing. "Who are you?" he shouted to the empty air. There was no answer to that demand, only the same maddening word, hissed in his ear. Dean backed away, and stumbled in the long, tangled grass. He leapt up and again pointed the salt gun at the place where'd stood. "Show yourself!"

The spirit was not enticed to do so. Instead it continued to circle the hunter, whispering it's accusation, tormenting him. Dean kept backing away, with equal measures of annoyance and fear. He tripped several more times, cursing. The grass seemed to hide a network of vines; wild grape, virginia creeper. The tendrils coiled around everything, choking whatever they grew up against. -_Where the hell did all these freaking things come from?_ He hadn't noticed them before, but here they twined along the ground; dry, rough serpents, rising in tangled hummocks over rocks and stumps, and snaking through the grass in treacherous loops. He stumbled again, despite his scanning the ground for the obstacles. But he wasn't about to slow down now; he could see the road ahead, and the air had grown so chilled that his breath was condensing in puffs, despite the warm afternoon sun. The whispering seemed to surround him, as if it emanated from some constantly changing position. He wanted to cover his ears, but he kept both hands tight on the shotgun, pointing it frantically each time in the direction from which the sound came, but nothing ever materialized. The damned EMF kept up its screech, as if yelling an_ I-told-you-so_, and warning him to hurry up and get the hell out of there. He fumbled a hand over it, finally shutting it off as it's message was already clear enough..

.._SINNER!..._

He felt a rising panic. It wouldn't leave him alone, but it wouldn't present itself either, and he could hardly hit a target that refused to show. He was startled by a touch; he felt it now, a cold wisp, an icy breath caressed his face as that damned word was whispered. No longer heeding the perils of the ground in front of him, he started to run.

He felt something strike him, and he whipped around to see what it was. More things pelted him; small stones, the stunted apples. He ducked what he could, and kept his head down to protect his eyes. The words hissed loudly all around him; he yelled back in fear and fury at the entity that attacked him now, and fired off several wild shots with no effect. The barrage of apples and rocks continued, forcing him back, away from the road, and he stumbled back toward the meadow's far edge, squishing through the raw, damp clay that had been turned over by the backhoe.

* * *

><p>Afterward, he wouldn't be able to say whether he was tripped up by the vines, or if he'd been shoved. But either way, he suddenly found himself stumbling at the gully's edge, desperately trying to avoid falling. He lost his grip on the gun in a vain attempt to keep his balance. But his feet were caught in the damned grass, and the ground of the gully seemed to rush up to meet him. He reached with flailing arms toward something, anything, to slow his descent, but his nails scraped off loose bark.<p>

He was struck and whipped by the twisted branches of the old apple trees growing over the precipice. He shut his eyes against their sharp points, and hit the ground rolling. For a second, he saw the crest of the meadow above him, and a figure there... He collided face first with the hulking backhoe, which abruptly halted his headlong tumble. There wasn't time to voice the curse that flew through his mind. The violence of the impact knocked him breathless, he fell back limply against the earth, and slid past the machine. If it hadn't been for the scattered hawthorns at the bottom, he'd have landed in the water.

Stunned, he lay for a moment against the trees, heaving to catch his breath, and blinking hard to clear his vision of streaming blood. But his momentary relief at being spared a cold soaking in the creek was short-lived. Above him, the backhoe groaned and creaked, and began to slide.

-_Shit!_ He threw himself in desperation to one side as the heavy machine tipped and crashed down, the effort just sparing him from it's previous driver's fate. The backhoe screeched and ground and rolled, throwing up clods of earth and splintered trunks and a shower of leaves. The ruined hydraulics snapped free of the digging arm; it flailed loose briefly, like a broken neck on a dinosaur, and the iron-toothed bucket crashed down. Dean had no time to react before it landed squarely on him where he lay.

* * *

><p>His own coughing woke him. He lay quiet, uncomprehending, for a long time, gradually becoming aware of his surroundings. He pried his eyes open with difficulty, as his eyelashes were glued together with drying blood. His vision was too blurred to see much, but it was still light. The more he gained acuity, the more his hurts made themselves known. He groaned, spitting out the copper taste of more blood, as the numbness that was spread across his face began to wane, replaced by throbbing of increasing insistence. He lifted a hand and moved his fingers carefully over his features. He traced the rise of an impressive goose-egg on his forehead, the skin split and bruised. He couldn't tell if he'd busted his nose. He ran his tongue over his teeth, relieved that they, at least, were intact. Instinctively, he tried to haul himself up to sit. He shocked himself to full awareness with his own yell, falling back again.<p>

"Christ!...oh, sonofa-!"

He shuddered, as a breath-robbing pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He stopped moving and lay his head back down, catching his breath and evaluating. Passing his fingers gingerly over his left shoulder, he groaned again. The outline was all wrong, and his light pressing brought a stabbing pain that drove deep into the joint. It was dislocated, no question. The force of the digger's impact had wrenched it out, but it was a minor inconvenience compared to the rest. The backhoe bucket sat upside-down, like the top of a grinning predator's head, and it pinned his left forearm. One of it's great, rusty tines had pierced through, crucifying his arm to the damp earth. He reached his right hand out, fingertips just managing to brush the huge metal thing. He rolled a little and tried to push it, but it was immobile; a solid four hundred pounds of pitted iron. The motion brought a fresh rush of pain and he groaned involuntarily as whirling stars prickled his vision. He was forced to stop before he passed out, and he ground out a stream of choice words until the feeling faded.

His arm was already slick with blood. His shirt was fast becoming sodden at his armpit; blood had collected there from where it streamed from higher up. He gingerly pushed himself up now, careful not to move his shoulder any more than he had to, and scanned where his limb was caught. What greeted him nearly turned his stomach. The source of the bleeding was obvious; it welled lazily around the iron tine with each heartbeat, flowing down from the puncture in a sluggish stream, where it collected in the absorbant cotton of his sleeve. He groaned in dismay.

But there was still the bigger issue. He remembered what had brought him to this, and he was a sitting duck for whatever had been following him. He knew he had to get free somehow, or god-knows-what else was going to happen. Taking a ragged breath, he tried to flex his fingers, hoping that he could somehow pull his arm out from under the thing. He could hardly feel them, his hand was so numb, but he could feel the ripple of his tendons under his skin, relieved that the weight of the heavy metal thing wasn't fully carried by his arm alone. He thought he felt a little give, and he began to dig a hollow under his elbow, swearing at the pain as he clawed out handfuls of soil and leaves so that he could push his arm down into the void and free it from the tine. Roots barred his progress and he had to pull them out several times, and when they were stubborn, he tried to push them out of the way. It was painful and tiring, but he kept at it. When he thought there was enough room, he gripped his arm at the elbow, bit his lip and pressed, feeling the rusted metal slide a reluctant increment out of his flesh.

He didn't try it twice; he blacked out at the resulting agony. When he came to, a deafening hiss remained, but after several minutes it faded, leaving only the quiet burbling of the creek below him, and the sound of his own rapid breathing. He lay still, for some time, stunned by his predicament. Shivering in a cold sweat, he felt suddenly and overwhelmingly alone. He was swamped by impotent rage and pain, and he squeezed his eyes shut and choked out a bitter curse. Dean knew now, that he was in serious trouble.


	4. Chapter 4

4

Sam checked his watch again, growing annoyed. _Be back by three_ he'd said to Dean. He'd made the triple-feed of kraft dinner that he'd promised; the stuff had a limited lifespan and it was already congealing into a gluey mass as it cooled. He picked at it, waiting impatiently. The scent of May Adam's roadkill stew was starting to waft over, and he was loathe to admit that it really smelled good. Finally he broke down and called, resigned to the ribbing he'd have to endure about his wifely nagging. When there was no answer, a cold worry began to overtake his irritation.

* * *

><p>Dean's brush with despair was brief. He shrugged it off after a few moments, took stock and became practical again. He was aware that his phone was somewhere other than where he needed it to be, which was bloody typical. No doubt it had flown into the leaves somewhere down the slope. He was stuck where he was for now. He knew that he was losing blood, he had to stop that first. He reached down to his boots, trying very hard not to disturb his shoulder. He slowly unlaced both, and using his teeth to hold one end, he tied the cords together into something longer. Resting for a moment, he cleared his thinking, and pulled the sticky knit fabric of his sleeve up past his bicep, puffing with the effort it took not to yell. Instead, he laughed, struck by the absurdity of his situation. He wound the lace around his arm above his elbow, and knotted it. He knew he couldn't tighten it enough that way, so he felt around for a stick, and finding one that was solid, he slipped it under the cord, gritted his teeth and twisted it around and around, until the pinch began to hurt in earnest and he could feel the tell tale coldness creep down the offending limb. He held his breath and watched, squinting against the mounting pain, until the bleeding slowed to a tiny trickle. Satisfied, he pulled his sleeve back down over the stick to secure it and keep the cord tight. That task done, he leaned over and gave in to nausea, retching into the leaves until he collapsed back with exhaustion.<p>

.._god it hurt_... He'd lost a lot of blood. Under different circumstances, he'd keep trying to push his arm down, away from the metal tooth to free himself. Eventually he'd be able to pull away. But with his shoulder out, he couldn't bear the resulting movement on the displaced joint. Everytime he summoned the grit to try it, the sheer agony sent a black curtain across his senses. Finally he gave up and rested. He drifted off for a time, which was a blessing.

* * *

><p>Sam paced as he called and called. -<em>stupid!- <em>he berated himself; how could he have let him go there on his own? These things _never _worked out, he should know that by now. He couldn't believe that he'd been so selfish and short-sighted. A nap...just so he could take a bloody _nap! _ Dean was clearly in a mood for trouble, and now it looked like he may have found it. And here he was, without wheels, stuck in the farmhouse while...

"Screw this!" he growled to himself. He threw on his jacket and left, jogging to the highway. He had no idea how long it would take, but he vowed that he was going to walk, run or hitch-hike his way out to where Dean had said he was going, hostile locals be damned.

* * *

><p><em>"...Are you dead..?"<em>

He turned slowly and squinted toward the whispered voice. "Sammy?"

Sam didn't answer. No one did, the frosty air was still, and silent. Apparently the speaker's question was answered. Dean froze, wide eyed now, and his heartrate leapt in intensity. -_aw, not now, jesus!- _He knew the spirit was near; it was unnaturally cold. He struggled to sit up a little, fearful that his current jeopardy had just been eclipsed by something worse. A searing pain shot through him; it dizzied him and he lay back down, fighting the urge to heave again. He lay still for a long time, shutting his eyes and waiting for the agony to wane. He was at the spirit's mercy now, there was nothing he could do about it, and at the moment, he almost didn't care.

"_Dead yet?"_

Dean roused himself with difficulty. "Why do you care?" he groaned under his breath. He wasn't expecting an answer, but he got one; a whisper, barely audible, breathed into his ear. He shuddered with the chill, and the unnerving sensation of the close presence.

"_Can't save the living."_

Dean thought that a talking spirit was better than one that was attacking. All he wanted to do was sleep, the shock and blood loss were taking a toll. But he mastered his fear and continued the unusual conversation. "Did you save Bert Munro?"

The spirit seemed to back away for a moment; the air was warmed briefly, but after a time, the voice sighed out a response. "_He is saved. I ate his sins."_

Dean remembered. The odd little pile of apples. The sin-eater. "Did you kill him?"

The spirit didn't answer for a time. When it did, it was almost too quiet to hear. "_Didn't mean to_."

"What happened..?"

The silence stretched out again before he replied. "_He was gonna take my stone. Stone's all I got."_

Despite his pain, Dean was intrigued, and it took his mind off his predicament a little. "What's your name, anyway?"

"_Sin eater."_

"No, your real name."

(pause) _"...I am...Sin eater_."

"Don't you have a Christian name?"

Sin Eater was silent for a long time. Finally it whispered. "_Nathaniel. Nathaniel Willard is my christian name."_

-_Now we're getting somewhere.- _Dean thought. He swallowed hard, and collected himself. "So Nate, why are you hanging around here, saving our undeserving souls? ...Don't you wanna go to heaven?"

Sin eater sighed... a long, drawn-out sound, heavy with pain. "_Pearly gates will not open for me. I am reviled."_

"Reviled? By who?"

"_the Lord."_

_Ah... _"So you stay here..."

"_Don't wanna go to hell."_

-_Amen, buddy_.- Dean shifted a little, feeling the cold creeping into his bones. It brought such blinding pain that he couldn't help but cry out. He grimaced and waited for it to fade.

Sin eater spoke again. "_You're hurtin..."_

"Yeah." Dean whispered, still clamping his eyes shut.

"_You want me to stop it..?"_

Dean's eyes flew open at that. "What...what are you asking me, Nate? Do I want you to finish me off?"

_"Yes. ...So I can save your soul..."_

Dean recoiled painfully from the source of the whisper. "No! No, thanks anyway, I'm fine! Besides, Nate; you'd have to eat a mountain of apples to save me from my many sins, trust me."

_"You are not a good man..?"_

Dean snorted. "I'm good enough. But good men do bad things, and bad men do good, Nate. It's not always cut and dried."

Sin eater wasn't convinced. "_Don't matter what you done, I can save your soul, if you let me..."_

Dean's heart rate spiked with renewed fear. The conversation had been going so well, but it had taken a dangerous turn. "No. I don't wanna die today, Nate."

But the sin eater was singular of purpose. It was all he knew to do, offering the service for which he had been both sought out and reviled all his life. "_Ain't gonna hurt you... But I will save your soul. I must."_

Dean's panic rose. He spoke urgently to the empty space in front of him, his voice growing hoarse. "No, Nate! You can't! You can't save my soul, ok? It's not possible!"

_"Why?"_

"Because..." he sighed. "..because I sold it already, to a crossroads demon. The Devil owns it now, it's a done deal, you're wasting your efforts!"

That was met by lengthy silence. Dean's heart calmed a little, and he shivered in the shadows. He shifted again, trying to alleviate the pain that pulsed from his wrist to his neck.

Sin Eater picked up an apple from the ground beside Dean's head, it hurled through the air, shattering into bits against a black trunk. Dean shivered, afraid to breathe while the spirit ranted.

"_All them sinners, all hell-bound cuz of their own greed and lust and meanness... all they wanted in the end was for me to deliver them from their due. Their kin would come; all cryin, all begging it of me like I was the blessed Saviour himself! I took their pittances and tarred my soul for all of them, though none of'em ever deserved their reprieve. But you! You damned yourself! Why? why would you do this terrible, terrible thing..?"_

Dean found his eyes watering for a moment. "To save my brother." he whispered.

Sin eater seemed to calm. It sighed again. _"Family is a worthy cause, I guess. Mostly. Are you afraid.?"_

Dean almost snorted. "I'm lying under a damned tractor, bleeding out, and arguing with a ghost why he shouldn't gank me. You're gonna have to be more specific."

"_Are you afraid...of hell."_

It was Dean's turn for silence now. Finally he answered. "Yeah."

The spirit had nothing to say for some time. Nor did Dean. Finally its whisper came again. "_Then I will not send you to where I'm scared to go."_

"I appreciate that, Nate."

He really did. He shifted again, trying to sit up, but he was too weak now to withstand the resulting hurt. He groaned and curled up a little, feeling so chilled in the gloom, out of the sun that still warmed the clearing. And Nathaniel Willard's presence dropped the temperature significantly. He closed his eyes and drifted for a while.

* * *

><p>Sam trudged along the sunny road, feeling nothing of the late sun's warmth on his back, and hating himself more with every step. He tried his brother's cell endlessly, but was met each time with a long period of ringing, and then the damned voicemail. He'd tried Bobby as well, but he too wasn't answering. He stopped leaving messages, worried he'd run out of juice. He turned toward the road again, hoping someone would drive past. Cicadas were singing back and forth in the tree tops along the roadside, as if chastising him, decrying his poor judgement. And of course Dean would be smacking him on the side of his head if he knew he was thinking this way. He'd deride him for even believing he had any control over what his elder brother did. But right now, that didn't matter, Sam shouldered the heavy blame and walked on. Finally he heard the dry sound of tires on gravel. He faced the road again, holding out his thumb hopefully...<p>

* * *

><p>Dean awoke with a start, shivering violently with cold. He didn't know what had pulled him back to the present, but he vaguely remembered strange sounds...small hollow thumps. He glanced up the hill, hoping desperately that it was Sam. It wasn't. Apples were rolling down the embankment, the limbs above shaking, dropping their misshapen bounty. He watched, mesmerized, as the golden yellow fruit bounced and rolled with purpose toward him. -<em>ok, that's weird<em>. He wondered if he was hallucinating, and glanced down at himself, as the apples continued to find their way toward his prone form. There, on his stomach, was a little pile of them, with more and more eerily adding themselves to the collection. Wasps buzzed over the sweet, ripe flesh, angry at being disturbed by the activity. He swept them all off in horror as he heard the sin-eater's whispered words:

..._I give easement and rest now to thee, friend. Come not down the lanes or in our meadows. And for thy peace I pawn my own soul. Amen..._

"I'm not dead, Nate."

"_Oh. Thought maybe you was."_

Dean moaned a little, struck by the futility of it all. "Yeah well; soon enough, I guess. ..And I told you not to bother anyway; you can't save me. Why don't you do something useful and move this damned machine instead?"

"_Can't. ...too big."_

"You pushed it down the ravine-"

_"I didn't. ...only held onto my stone. ...didn't mean for it to roll."_

"Bert Munro died by accident then?"

The spirit seemed to fade again. Dean was struck by a lonely sadness. But after a time it returned to answer. _"They bashed in his head, while he lay under it... begging them to help him."_

Dean's attention sharpened. "They? Who, Nate? ..and why?"

"_Them that skulks in these woods."_

"Who, people? Living people?"

"_Yes. The living. Nothing but evil..."_

Dean was growing weaker; he felt light-headed, the cold dulling his thinking. "Somebody's doing something out here? Something they're hiding maybe..?"

Nathaniel's affirmative came as a frosty sigh on the wind.

"Who, Nate? Who's out here, up to something-?"

"_His name...is unknown to me."_

Dean got no further information from his ethereal companion. There was silence for a long time, but he knew Nate was still there; his own warm breath still condensed in the unnaturally chilly air. He was damp with the sweat that blood loss brought, and losing body warmth too fast. "Fine, Nathaniel Willard; you can't move a backhoe. Well how 'bout some dry leaves then? I'm freezing here."

Nate didn't answer. But a soft swishing sound floated down from the lip of the clearing, and soon, dry, golden leaves swept toward him, as if pushed by breezes. They collected around him, building into a pile that eventually covered his shivering body. It was creepy as all hell, but Dean was grateful. It lessened his chill considerably. He whispered his thanks.

Nathaniel said nothing. He began to grow restless."_They're comin'..."_

Dean was sleepy; his thinking felt fuzzy, and unclear. He turned wearily toward the sound. "What, Nate? Who's coming-?"

"_Them that wants to take my stone away... It ain't right, ain't fair, doin that. It's all I got."_

The icy air that had accompanied his new aquaintance suddenly lifted. Dean knew that Nate had gone. He realized now the significance of the sin eater's words. Someone was coming up to the clearing, and Nate was determined to ward them off, just as he had the others. But what if it was Sam? Nathanial Willard wasn't evil, but he had already proved that he would do violence to protect his sanctuary. At least one man was dead because of it.

"Nate? Nate! Nathaniel!" he cried out after him, but there was no response. Dean swore, terrified that Sam was in jeopardy, and he gritted his teeth, rolled over and pushed his pinned arm down hard into the hollow. It was flaming agony. He howled in pain and frustration, streaming tears as he felt the flesh and bone move off the crusted metal. But it hurt so much; he was too weak, and he couldn't keep it up. He couldn't get clear of the point, and he fell back with a sob. He choked out Sam's name one more time but it came out as a whisper. His abject panic sapped him; he lost sensation and a roaring black wall silenced everything.


	5. Chapter 5

5

Sam waved with relief at the occupant of the gleaming new black Ford.

The man leaned out of the truck window, smiling benignly. "Where you headed?"

"Not too far. My brother..uh..lost his keys, he asked me to come out with the spare. He was going hiking, he parked at a restaurant along the highway." He hopped up into the cab of the pickup, grateful that this individual seemed friendly.

"You must mean Molly's, then. That's only a few miles up the road. -Place is shut down, your brother woulda been outa luck if he was looking for dinner."

Sam nodded, distracted with worry. The man continued chatting. "Hiking, eh? Beautiful country around here. Your brother a hunting man?"

"Uh, no...not really. He just likes to get out into the woods, take some pictures, that kind of thing. We're just passing through, but we thought we'd take a couple of days to enjoy the area."

"Uh huh. Lots of people like to do that. Gotta be careful around these hills though; plenty of old mines, and wild critters. A man can get lost out here pretty quick, just disappear. Where are you staying?" It was an innocent question, Sam saw no need to avoid answering. They were no doubt already subjects of the gossip grapevine anyway.

"May Adam's place."

The driver nodded, and offered Sam a smoke, which he declined. Sam had a moment to admire the new vehicle, which was a sharp contrast to the majority of beater pickups he'd seen so far. "Nice truck."

The driver smiled proudly. "Yep. Super duty one ton Hemi. I could pull a bus out of a swamp with this baby. Sucks fuel like a bitch, but there's a price to everything, right..?"

Sam didn't have a chance to answer, as the Impala came into view as they rounded the corner. The man's eyes narrowed slightly as he pulled in behind the car, but his demeanour remained unchanged.

"Well there you go. You say hello to your brother, now. And better warn him to watch his step out here. Like I said, plenty of dangers to put a man in the ground before his time." He smiled warmly and Sam got out, thanking him. He waved as the shining truck drove off and faded from his view. As he opened the locked Impala door, the phrasing of his companion'c conversation began to bother him. If the man hadn't been so affable, he might have taken it as a thinly veiled threat. But he shunted it from his mind, more concerned about Dean's whereabouts. His older brother didn't like the woods, but he was no novice to staying ahead of anything that was a potential danger; the least of his worries would have been old mine shafts or forest creatures.

He quickly examined the interior. Nothing looked out of place, it was exactly as Dean would have left it. He reached under the passenger seat and found his hunting knife, securing it under the elastic of one of his socks, just in case. While he was at it, he popped the trunk and retrieved a gun, fervently hoping he wouldn't need to use it. He locked the car and stood, scanning the rolling ground and the blue green hill beyond. The new trail was obvious, he glanced around to make sure he was alone, and set out.

* * *

><p>Within a short time he too came across the pile of logs that had rolled off their trailer. He stopped and took the opportunity to call Dean's name. There was no answer, and he trudged on. The trail widened and entered the clearing that Dean had described. Definitely an old homestead. He stopped again to call, but his voice echoed in the trees and was answered only by the wings of a fleeing bird somewhere high in the canopy. He could see a flattened path snaking through the long grass, where someone had walked recently. He followed it, passing the ruined outbuildings, the stone foundations. It continued on, and he found himself ducking under the branches of the old orchard. He stopped to call again, but only crickets responded. He saw the freshly graded soil just beyond, and remembered Dean's description of the stone. He searched for it and found it, and he crouched, placing his hand on the sun warmed marble. He traced the lettering with his finger. Sin Eater. He sighed with worry, and was about to stand when he was pelted by a soggy object. He spun in surprise as it rolled to his feet. An apple. It must have detached from the tree and dropped onto him, although he was surprised at how hard it had struck him. But when the second one hit with equal force, he was sure now that it was no natural occurrence.<p>

"Dean?" he called hopefully.

No answer. But another ripe fruit flew at him and shattered against his temple. Sam swore, wiping away the bits as he glanced around wildly for the culprit, and he backed away from the stone. It was then that he felt it, the sudden, eerie drop in air temperature. He shivered at the cold wisp across his ear, and then he heard it, the whispered word-

-_sinner-_

He backed away into the clay swath, hands up, ready to defect any further volleys. The word sighed in his ear again, and his heart began to race. He had no salt, or iron; nothing to discourage the presence that made itself known now. He began to run, stumbling in the sticky clay and tangles of vines. More and more apples bounced off him, he roared in frustration, ducking as many as he could. He skidded to a stop, huffing, at a sudden, echoing sound. Squinting against the onslaught of flying fruit, he strained to hear more.

A voice; anxious sounding words, came from somewhere below in the ravine. It was followed by a howl that stopped abruptly, and then nothing.

Sam knew that sound. It was pain, frustration, anger... He knew the voice. He broke into a run, guessing at the direction from which it came. "Dean? Dean!" he called frantically. He was met with silence. He reached the edge of the gully and stared down, scanning desperately. He saw the tangled backhoe in the mottled shadows.. And after a moment, he recognized a familiar head and arm sticking out from a pile of leafy detritus beside it.

"Dean!"

* * *

><p>Sam plunged down the slope, heedless of the steep and slippery terrain, and he dug his heels in to slow his descent when he reached the pile, faling to his knees and frantically brushing away the dry, crunching cover that obscured Dean's body. He found his pulse, breathing out his relief, and held his face in his hands. His gentle, urgent words brought Dean back to surface.<p>

"Sam." he groaned.

"Shut-up, don't talk." Sam checked him over quickly. He was horrified by what he saw; the backhoe bucket, the dirty, rusted iron tine buried in a bloodied forearm. He reached under his brother's shoulders to pull him up.

"Don't!" Dean cried weakly. "Sammy, don't; my shoulder's right out."

Sam laid him back down softly. "Jesus, man! What happened?"

Dean grimaced, and blinked away his fog. "I took a header down the slope and hit the backhoe. It rolled, caught my arm and pulled my shoulder out. Sam, the sin eater-"

"I know, Dean. The spirit attacked me up on the clearing; we're not safe here, I've gotta get you out of here."

Dean struggled to stay lucid, the pain in his arm and shoulder was gripping him in stomach-turning waves. "No, he's not...not the only threat. Sam, I know his name, but there's more-"

Sam was busy examining Dean's arm in order to free him. He saw the results of the tactic Dean had tried; the soil clawed away from beneath his elbow. He quickly ascertained that it was the only way. "Tell me later. I have to get your arm free, ok? I'm going to do what you tried; I'll dig the dirt out from under, then I'll push your arm down. Are you ready for that?"

Dean groaned. "No...but do it anyway. Just don't move my shoulder-"

Sam nodded. He clawed and scraped at the soil and roots under Dean's arm, until the hollow was deep enough to clear the point of the tine when he pushed. He glanced anxiously at Dean, who had his head turned away, and was squeezing his eyes shut, his mouth a tight line. "Ok Dean, on three-"

Sam pressed firmly. Dean tensed and shuddered, moaning as the metal began to slide out. When he couldn't take any more he clawed at Sam's jacket. "Stop! Sam, stop for a sec-"

But Sam kept pressing down until the arm was free. Dean roared a string of curses until his voice broke. When the tine was all the way out, Sam pulled the arm free and laid it across Dean's chest for a moment. Dean was panting, fighting blackness, tears streaming from his eyes. As he lay there, coming to grips with the pain, Sam took a moment to survey the damage. There was a vicious, gaping puncture, all the way through, and he had felt grinding movement in one side of the arm when he'd pressed; at least one of the bones was broken. The wound was filthy with rust and soil. He saw now the extent of the bleeding too. He carefully lifted the sodden sleeve, and found the cord twisted tightly at the elbow. _-Smart_. Sam understood that Dean had probably saved his life by tying off the arm. And once again he was impressed by his brother's strength and savvy in dire situations. It was more than their father's training, it was Dean's solid character.

He let him rest for a while. "How are you doing?"

Dean gave a half-hearted thumbs up. The next issue could be addressed. Sam had reset his brother's shoulder several times before; it was a weak spot, caused by a bad dislocation several years before, and it separated easily ever since. "I'm going to turn you onto your stomach so I can put your arm back, ok?"

Dean swallowed hard and nodded. Sam gripped him, holding his injured arm, and skillfully rolled him. He put his knee in the middle of his back, and after counting three once more, he pulled the arm straight out, manipulating it until he felt it slip back properly into the rotator cuff. Dean yelled against the forest floor, squeezing a fistful of dirt until moisture streamed out between his fingers. But his relief was instant once his arm was back in place; it ached sharply, but at least it felt right again. "Thanks." he ground out.

Sam patted his good shoulder in response. He was worried about a recurrence of his encounter with the apparently angry Sin Eater. Dean needed a few moments to recover, but they had to get to safety as quickly as they could. "Dean, do you think you can walk? I can try to carry you."

Dean slowly, carefully, rolled himself on to his back again. "I'll try in a minute. How'd you get here?"

"Hitch-hiked. Got a lift with a guy in a new black pickup. I guess he was doing better than most around here. Seemed friendly enough."

Dean was still suffering the effects of his ordeal, he tried to stay focused, but was starting to feel disconnected.. He felt like he was wrapped in cotton, muffling sound and sensation. More than anything he wanted to be out of the damp and sour earth and in a warm bed somewhere. He vaguely remembered a similar vehicle at the post office. He wanted to say something to that effect, but it escaped him. Still shocky, he began to pass out.

Sam gently shook him awake. "Dean, you've got to stay with me, ok? I'm going to get you on your feet, then we'll go to the car. You need a doctor, you've bled too much already."

"...yeah."

* * *

><p>He had to secure that arm. He stripped off his own jacket and used it to bind Dean's wounded limb to his body, to keep it from being jarred. Sam then gingerly hauled him to his knees. Dean swayed unsteadily and clung to him with his good hand, trembling with weakness and shaking his head to stay alert. After a few dicey minutes he seemed to hold up.<p>

"You ok, Dean?" Sam asked anxiously as he held him there. "You're not going to hurl on me are you?"

"No guarantees." he said hoarsely. But he made a motion that he wanted to try to stand, and Sam pulled him up to his feet. Dean staggered; his knees buckled and Sam caught him.

"Easy, I've got you. Let's try this a different way." He didn't wait for permission; he unceremoniously slung his brother's heavy form over his shoulder and carried him in an awkward fireman's lift up the bank. Once at the top, he sat him down by the apple trees for a moment while he puffed from the exertion. Dean leaned against a trunk and steadied himself. Sam was about to raise him once more to his feet, when he suddenly felt the air chill. His breath became visible, and he was filled with fear. He knew that the spirit was in their midst once more, and they couldn't run. He moved in front of Dean protectively, ready to shield his brother from whatever the spirit might do. "Dean!" he warned.

Dean had felt the change as well. "I know, Sam; it's ok.." He addressed the empty space between them. "Nathaniel Willard; meet my brother, Sam Winchester."


	6. Chapter 6

6

Sam looked at Dean as if he'd gone insane. "Dean-?"

Dean shut his eyes for a second, and nodded. "I was stuck where I was for a while, Sam. Nate here was kind enough to keep me company."

Nathaniel Willard whispered his hello. Sam was alarmed, but intrigued as well. _This_ was a new one. "Uh...hi, Nathaniel. ..um, thanks for looking out for Dean, here. Were you the one hitting me with the apples? I'm not here to cause you any harm... I just came out to find my brother..." He paused, embarrassed. He looked to Dean for reassurance. Dean nodded wearily, and Sam continued. "Geez, I feel weird talking to the air...can you show yourself at all?"

The sin eater was silent for a while. Finally he said, _" It's hard. Tuckers me out...but gimme a minute_."

Both Dean and Sam watched as a nebulous mist formed in front of them. It began to take shape, until finally, the Sin Eater stood before them. It was a horrifying incarnation. An emaciated, bearded man of about thirty appeared. He was dressed in rags, and was bloodied. His right hand was crushed, bone and gore hanging below his sleeve. His shirt was torn, his belly was laid open, a loop of dirt-crusted intestine exposed and hanging. Both the brothers recoiled.

"Jesus, Nate...what the hell happened to you?" Dean finally asked.

The apparition cocked his head quizzically and looked down at himself. "This is what I was, last...after the buckboard. This is Sin Eater."

Dean had no idea what he was referring to regarding the wagon. He shook his head at Sam's questioning look. He addressed the horror in front of him. "Nate, that's pretty brutal. But I'm not talking to the Sin eater, ok? I'm talking to Nathaniel Willard. Can you show me Nathaniel instead..?"

The spirit sighed in confusion. "I been Sin Eater more years than I was Nate. That was a long, long time ago...not sure I can remember."

Dean took a chance. "Nate, show us how your mother would remember you."

It took some time, it was clearly a struggle for the sin eater to recall that earlier form. But slowly, the apparition changed. What emerged was much easier on the eyes. A boy, perhaps in his early teens. He was thin, but had a look of wiry health. He wore clothing that was patched and darned, and his eyes were clear and hopeful, a shade of green. His short, tousled hair was bleached light by the summer sun, and his freckles were almost obscured by the tan of a boy who spent most of his days outdoors. Sam and Dean exchanged glances.

"That's better. Hello Nathaniel." Dean said quietly.

The apparition smiled shyly. Sam stared, fascinated. He'd never had an interaction with a spirit quite like this, they were most often tortured, angry wraiths bent on revenge or mayhem, the only interaction was their screaming anguish.. Nathaniel seemed sort of peaceful, despite his state of flux. At least when he wasn't pelting people with apples.

Nate still spoke in a whisper. "You never told me your name, but I heard it; it's Dean, ain't it? Is this the one you damned your soul for..?"

Dean glanced at Sam, who turned his eyes away. Dean nodded.

Sam wanted to turn the conversation anywhere but in the direction it was headed. "We have to go, Dean; we need to find you some help, and it's going to get dark soon." He reached around his brother's shoulders to raise him.

"Wait, Sam; my phone, I need to find it. It must have rolled down somewhere from where I ended up. Could you call it? You should be able to locate it that way. I can't afford to lose it."

"Are you sure it can't wait? You ok for a minute?"

"Yeah, I'm ok. I don't want it to get wrecked if it rains or something."

Sam frowned, but he left to find it. Dean leaned back and closed his eyes, rocking slightly, cradling his throbbing arm. The sin eater sat crosslegged on the ground, watching him quietly. Dean opened his eyes again, desperate for distraction.

"Nate, how come you came to be the sin eater? Seems like a lousy way to live.."

The apparition smiled wistfully. "Family...same as you."

"Tell me."

The boy sighed, and launched reluctantly into his story. "I lived here, me and my mama, and my daddy. It was pretty, but it was hard. Especially in winter. Up here, there wasn't no way to get out when the snow came, you was on your own 'til the thaw. My mama was...well she was beautiful. She taught me stuff, about how to grow things, and how to sing the church songs, and how to knit socks. She always told me I was the best thing she ever growed. She was always laughing, or at least smiling. At least when pa was out. She was real quiet when he was home. Had to be, else we'd set him off."

"Your old man was hard on you?"

The apparition frowned, and stared off into some distant and unhappy place. "He was a mean sonofabitch, that's what he was. And when he had the drink in him, well...we never knew what was coming then. I was maybe twelve or something, when he come home, full of the devil one night. Mama and me had spent the day gettin' the grain in. He got real mad cuz his dinner wasn't sittin' there hot and waiting for him, and he started beatin' on her. He wouldn't stop, I remember...she was screaming..."

Nathaniel's image began to fade.

"Are you leaving, Nate?" Dean asked.

"No..." he sighed. "Just gettin tired. I'm just gonna talk now, if that's ok."

"Sure."

The boy faded from Dean's view, but his whispered tale continued. "_I was real scared, more than ever. I always hid when he was like that, but this time I couldn't take it no more. I hollered at him to stop. Well, he didn't. He got this look on his face... Mama was lying quiet on the floor, and he lit into me. When he was done, I wasn't getting up, and he took the horses and left. He never came back. I crawled over to my mama, talkin' to her, beggin' her to be alright, but she wasn't. She died that night, I couldn't do nuthin for it."_

Dean sat, shivering, his heart aching for that poor kid. He knew what that boy had felt. He waited expectantly for him to continue. After a while, Nathaniel went on. "_ I was broken up bad, after what he done to me. I couldn't walk for days, couldn't get her to town, not without the horses. Nobody was there but me, so I just done what had to be done. I found some apples and I laid them on her. I said some words, maybe the wrong ones, I dunno...and I ate her sins. Don't think there was a whole lot of 'em. But once you done that, you can't go back. Anyway, I got her sorta wrapped up in a quilt, and I tried to bury her. I was too hurt to do it, so I dragged some stones over and covered her, best I could. Coyotes dug her up every night for four nights, I gave up after that, hardly nothin' left anyway."_

Dean was truly appalled. "Wow...that's really.. _jesus_. ..And your old man?"

"_Never came back. I hoped and prayed every day that he was dead and burnin'. I spent the winter here alone, I was real sick for a time, but the lord saw fit to keep me breathing. When spring came, I walked into town. After that, I had nuthin' to earn my way, so I started sin eatin' for money. That's about it."_

* * *

><p>Sam had returned with the cell. He saw that Nathaniel was gone, and turned his worried eyes to his brother. Dean shook his head and spoke to the sin eater. "Nate, I've got to go. I'll come back to talk to you again, later if you want."<p>

_"Yes_.." he sighed. "_it's awful lonely here sometimes_..." The voice faded away, and the air immediately lost it's icy edge.

Sam crouched in front of Dean. He didn't like how he looked; his pallor was pronounced, and he was in obvious pain. "Ok, Dean; I did what you asked, but we are going now. Can I lift you?"

Dean nodded, and Sam carefully hauled him to his feet, holding him until he was steadied. The two made their way back through the grass, back down the rough road, and both were awash with relief at the sight of the car. Sam managed to get him in without eliciting too many curses, and he pulled away from the site.

* * *

><p>Until Sam could ascertain where the nearest medical help was, he decided the most comfortable place for Dean was his bed at May Adam's. He got him in and settled, and started to call around. He knew that they would likely be able to offer a recommendation at the post office, but he would use that hostile source as a last resort. He searched online for the next closest town on the highway, and put a call in to a convenience store listed there. The news was not good. It seemed, like everything else, the nearest hospital was in Bradford. A long drive was inevitable.<p>

Dean was shivering badly, and was reduced to one word grunts in answer to Sam's anxious queries. Sam covered him with blankets, and went out to the car for the first aid kit. Unfortunately, it hadn't been replenished after their last misadventures, and bandaging was in short supply.

"Dean, listen...I'm going to check around in May's house for some med stuff, ok? Do you need anything first?"

Dean pulled the blanket higher with his good hand. "I'm freezing, I need something warm. That stew smells good, get me some of that. And hand me that bottle, will you?"

Sam did so, un capping it and pouring a good bit out into a mug. "Ok, back in a sec."

He left, walking around the tangle of hollyhocks that graced the sunny side of the farmhouse. He remembered May's warning, that they should mind Angus. He hoped he wasn't some huge half-bred wolf-dog or something. He knocked at the screen door, and when there was no answer, and thankfully no deep threatening growl, he entered the kitchen.

* * *

><p>Angus was there, sitting silently. It wasn't a fearsome cur after all; wasn't a dog at all. He was the most grizzled, ancient old man Sam had ever seen. It appeared that Angus hadn't heard him enter, he sat snoring at the table, toothless old head resting on his chest, while his shirt-front slowly darkened with drool. He smelled of stale tobacco and urine. Sam gently nudged him.<p>

"What? What? Who're you? Where's May!" he croaked. Sam stuttered to answer, ducking the cane the old man swung at his head.

"Sir! Angus! We're the renters! May's at the wake, she told us to get some stew from the kitchen!" He had to say it several times more before Angus seemed to hear, or comprehend it fully.

"Ain't free! Cost you a fiver." he said sourly, wheezing and hocking up something unpleasant and spitting it onto the floor. Sam handed him a ten and found some bowls, filling them full. He remembered his other need. "Sir, my brother had an accident; would May have any bandages around?"

Angus sized him up with faded, rheumy eyes. "Ain't free."

Sam handed him another five, and Angus nodded curtly toward the cupboards. ''Over the sink. Don't touch nuthin else, hear?"

Sam thanked him and retrieved two thin rolls of gauze. He was about to leave when Angus poked him with the cane. "What's wrong with him? Did ya tangle with the sin eater, like Bert? Stupid bugger, told him to stay away from that land; cursed, I tell you. You was poking around where you ain't wanted, wasn't you? Got what you deserve. Idiot boy! Don't you know no better?"

Sam was shocked that the old codger had nailed it right off. "No, no, he just... fell and cut his arm. Angus, do you know anywhere closer than Bradford that he could see a doctor?"

Angus snorted. "I know everything. I'm a hunnert-an-two years old, nobody knows nuthin more'n old Angus." Sam waited impatiently for the information, but the old man seemed to forget the question.

"Sir?"

"What do you want?" he griped.

"A doctor? Is there any doctor nearby?"

"How the hell would I know?"

Sam thanked him, collected his bowls and left.

* * *

><p>Dean was into his second mugful. Sam was concerned, but the bourbon had made such a difference in his brother's suffering that he felt it was a benefit regardless. But the stew was a real help. Despite his miserable experience, Dean was hungry, and he took the bowl gratefully. And it was as good as the scent had promised. Only when Dean felt the curled spear of a tomato skin in his mouth did he even give a thought to Sam's porcupine fears. It didn't stop him from finishing it. He handed the bowl back, fortified somewhat.<p>

"Ok, Nurse Ratchet, have at it."

Sam found a bucket in the bathroom, he filled it with hot water, and brought soap and towels. He sat down on a chair beside Dean's bed, holding his wounded arm on a towel across his knees. He carefully picked out the forest debris from the wound, and cleaned it as well as he could. Dean had his head turned, hand over his eyes, and was trying his best to keep silent during the process. He was nearly successful, despite the stream of tears that slid down his face.

"So...what's the damage?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

Sam had done what he could. He'd cleaned out what he could see, and he'd bound it tightly in fresh cotton. He'd even sacrificed a brand new pair of sport socks, folding them into squares and tucking them under to absorb the blood still oozing from both sides. He'd tied a wooden spoon from May's kitchen into the wrappings as a splint. "Well...pretty sure you broke at least one of the bones. Nasty, dirty wound, too. We really need to get this fixed up properly, especially after you bled so much. How's your shoulder?"

"On freaking fire. Pass that bottle over again."

Sam was about to, when the door abruptly opened. Old Angus shuffled in, leaning heavily on his cane. He wandered over to the bedside, peering at Dean's injury. "It's whisky and a good sharp saw that you want for that." He cackled loudly at his own idea of humour.

Dean shot his brother a look of alarm and disgust. "Sam?"

Sam turned to the old man. "Angus, is there something we can do for you?"

Angus pulled up a chair and sat his rickety backside slowly down. It was fairly clear that he had the intention of visiting for a while. Sam asked again. "..Angus?"

He was either ignored or Angus simply didn't hear. The old man sat back, crossed his arms, and when he was sure their attention was rapt, he began to reminisce.

"You boys, being outsiders; you wouldn't know the comings and goings of folks from here. This here's hard country. Folks've been half starving here for over a hunnert years, ain't no better nowadays either."

Dean glared at his brother, in no mood to humour a stranger, especially this senile incarnation. Sam interrupted Angus. "Sir, we'd love to hear it, but right now my brother here could use some rest."

Angus ignored him, and gestured toward the bottle. "This ain't free."

"What? _What _isn't free?" Sam barked, his patience frayed.

Angus continued. "You wanna know about the sin eater, don't ya? Nobody knows it proper but me. I was there, you know."

That caught his attention. Dean raised his head, and shared a glance with Sam. Sam shook his head. "Not now, Dean, it's not important."

But it _was_ important. Dean had to know. He'd felt a strong connection with the Sin Eater; his story had hit him hard, and for him, it was worth the delay. "Yeah, it is. Offer him a drink." he said quietly.

Sam sighed in defeat. "Angus, care for a snort?"

The old man grinned slyly and held out his hand. Sam poured out a measure and passed it to him, pausing to ask, "Why would we want to know about that?"

"Didn't I tell you I know everything, boy? That yappy McCormack woman down at the post office phoned May and said there was two strangers what asked about it. And so far, you're the only outsiders here. So I done the math."

Dean didn't have the patience or stamina to put up with a production. "Fine, spit it out then, old man. If you have something to say, then say it; otherwise I could use some peace and quiet about now." Having tightly bound the arm, Sam had untied the makeshift tourniquet, and a flood of unwelcome sensation accompanied the renewed bloodflow. He really just wanted to be alone, at least until the bourbon kicked in.

The old man frowned. "Mind your manners, boy. Now, where the hell was I..?"

Sam rolled his eyes and prompted him, "The sin eater; you were telling us all about it."

Angus remembered, and the rest of the story unfolded.


	7. Chapter 7

7

The old man quaffed his drink with relish. May rarely let him indulge in such vices, it was she who would have to clean up any aftermath. It lubricated both his willingness to share, and his memories. Sam sat impatiently, awaiting the completion of the tale, and Dean was simply grateful for anything that took his mind away from his injuries.

"Well, I assume you boys know something about it all..."

Sam answered. "We know his name, Nathaniel Willard. And we know how he started sin-eating."

"Willard?" the old man spat. " He was a Buell. Nate Buell. His daddy was a Buell. He growed up on Buell Farm, and came into town after his pa took off, and his mama died. She was a Willard."

Dean wasn't surprised that Nathaniel had chosen to identify himself by his mother's maiden name. Not after what his old man had done. "So it's Buell farm then. We already know he abandoned the holding to come into town, and why. What happened after that?"

Angus had drained his glass. He stuck his stubbled chin out in defiance. "Damned small glass you gimme..."

Sam replenished it, and the old man continued. "Well, that boy struggled, like most of us in those days. He didn't have no skills, didn't know his letters, didn't know nuthin' other than a bit of farmin'. He took work, here and there, when it was offered. Pretty soon he was like so many then, half starvin', and outa choices. He took to sin-eatin. Folks are always dying, no matter how hard they prayed. A man who was willing to blacken his soul always had worth, and he was called to do his chosen task from time to time. Poor bastard never did learn any trade; there weren't no pa or otherwise to teach him nothing useful. He lived in the outskirts of town, in a shed, never had no wife or comforts. Nobody ever talked to him, he didn't mix with folks either. Weren't long before nobody even knew what family he come from. he was just Sin Eater." The old man stared away, absorbed by the images his memories conjured. Finally Sam had to prod him to continue.

"Right. So, anyhow, he went on like that, for a long time. Folks came to know him as the man to hire, when death visited the house. He never earned much; he hardly lived well, like all them others he was savin' from damnation.. But he accepted his place. And the one odd thing was, a man in his position; you'd think he'd take hard to the drink to pass his miserable days, but not him. He wouldn't touch any spirits, or even beer, all he ever wanted at any sin-eatin' was a cup of milk and bread and apple pie. Strange thing...Anyways, it happened one day, there was a death that come to pass, and he was called upon, as usual."

Angus stopped there. He knew he had their attention. Both brothers stared at him, waiting for him to continue. "Hell; it was so long ago. Hardly know if I can remember..."

Sam poured another drink for him. Angus grinned and winked, glad that they had an understanding. He sat back and stretched, indulging in a drawn-out belch before continuing his tale. "Well, it was a man what died; a well known towner. His name was Jeremiah...Jeremiah Buell. He was a big man in Spencerville. He had a fine house in town, and a goodly living in his general store, supplying miners and farmers with his over-priced and shoddy goods. Remarried, with a fresh crop of sons. But for all his money, he died anyway; consumption, or maybe from the drink. And they called in the sin-eater. Well, that raggedy bastard took one look at the dead man laid out in finery, and didn't he refuse to do his duty. He cursed the corpse, and he backed away, and threw their coins back into the family's faces. He wasn't gonna eat those sins, he knew what they were, more'n anybody.. That Buell was his daddy, the same man what used to treat his first wife and boy so bad, who abandoned them at the farm years before. Buell was the devil himself in the sin-eater's eyes. He spat curses at the widow, and at her gathered sons, and he ran out into the street. Buell's brother Henry was so angered by what he done, that he went after him. Nobody saw what happened, but it ended up that Sin Eater was runned over by Buell's buckboard in the street. The poor bastard was laid open by those iron-banded wheels, and he died there in the dust, with nobody wantin' to touch his cursed hide to help him. He laid there for three days, dragged off to the side and stinkin' under a tarp, while they all argued over what to do with him. Since there was no willing witnesses, it was called an accident. The courts said that Henry Buell was obligated to pay the burial costs. So they threw his carcass in a box, made up a stone real quick and buried him back at the farm, cuz the churchyard was denied him."

* * *

><p>Dean lay, engrossed in the telling. Sam too was still, listening to the story unfold. Angus's tale explained the basic and unsentimental gravestone. It also explained why it was on the Buell farm, rather than in hallowed ground. Dean had to know more... "Angus, how come the Buells never took back that farm land?"<p>

Angus spat. "Well, it weren't cuz they had enough shame, or fear to leave well enough alone. Truth is; them Buells never had legal title to that land. Those days, you just squatted, you carved out your spread on whatever state land was half-level on them hills. Land was never good enough to think of payin' for official, 'cept in town. And people have gone out there, over the years, hopin' to buy it; rich buggers who want their little acre of paradise to visit. And always they was scared away. I don't know what went on to spook them, but I guess it was enough to give that place the reputation it had. Cursed...haunted, whatever. Nobody really went up there after, least nobody what knew the story. Only jack-ass strangers... Hell, even Frank Buell wasn't interested, til lately. But he lost his chance, bein' incarcerated at the time, when that land finally went to auction."

The name struck Dean. He remembered the one that seemed to be the leader at the post office: they'd called him Frank. "Frank Buell; is he about mid-thirties, kind of a pushy bastard?"

Angus gave him a look that suggested he was an idiot. "Well sure. Frank Buell is the voice of the men around here. Nothing goes on here that he don't have a firm hand in. Does well for himself; him and his group are the only ones around here that seem to be able to make a good livin' while the rest of us are wearin' patches and eatin acorns. Served him right when he was hauled in; guess he wasn't as slippery as he thought he was. He was put away for assault, did eighteen months. He went after some inspector, on account of them big wind generators he got up on the mountain. They wasn't safe, didn't have no permits or somethin', I dunno; but he beat the livin' snot out of him, poor bastard. While Frank was in prison, the auction was held, and old Bert Munro picked it up. Everbody told him he was nuts to touch that tainted ground, but he already had a buyer waitin'. "

Dean was losing the ability to concentrate. He wanted to learn more, but he was fighting weakness, and the pain of his arm was making him feel ill. Sam could see he was flagging. "Dean, c'mon, we can talk more later; you have to get to Bradford."

Dean rubbed his eyes. "I know, Sam...just a few minutes more, ok? I need to know this."

Sam sighed, knowing the alternative was to haul him over his shoulder and dump him into the car kicking. He busied himself by collecting their things to leave while the conversation continued.

"Why does Buell have windmills?" Dean wondered.

"Well how the hell would I know? Frank keeps his business to himself, 'cept for his lackeys. Most likely he don't wanna be part of the government grid, he's particular sore about Feds."

Dean snorted. "So I noticed." He glanced up at Sam, who was waiting by the door, arms crossed, an anxious mother-hen expression creasing his brow. He decided that the rest could wait. "Gotta cut you off there, Angus. I'll save you some of that bottle for later. Sam, you wanna give me a hand getting out?"

Sam nodded, relieved. He moved to the bedside, about to lift Dean and help him to his feet, when they all turned in shock-

* * *

><p>The door was flung wide, kicked open with a splintering violence. Three men stood there. One of them was familiar to Sam; he was the one he'd hitched a ride with earlier. The second was some weaselly bearded sycophant. But the centre figure was none other than Franklin William Buell.<p>

"Angus! Get your ass home!" Frank barked.

The old man took exception to the affront. "Now who the hell do you think you are, boy? This is my house! You just-"

Frank Buell pointed his rifle at Angus's belly. " I didn't ask, you stinking old corpse. Get back to the house, or you won't see your next year!"

Angus wisely retreated. "I'm goin'. But you'll have May to answer to, Frank!. She won't take kindly to you bustin' in here!"

Frank tossed him a roll of bills. "Maybe that'll ease her mind."

Angus unfolded the wad. It was at least a hundred dollars, and more. He looked up at the bully in front of him and grinned a toothless parody of a smile. "Well I believe it just might." He shuffled out the open door and retreated to the kitchen. Frank Buell turned his icy stare towards the brothers.

"Hello, boys. Or should I call you Agents? We got some business to discuss."

Dean was frozen, mid-rise from the bed. He was tense with adrenalin and waiting to spring, but with three guns cocked and aimed, he stayed where he was. Sam stood beside him, shocked by the intrusion.

"Who the hell-?

Dean's demand was silenced by the butt of Frank's rifle. It caught him hard on his cheek, and it filled his vision with a splendour of bursting stars. Sam roared his objection, but his rush was stopped by the pummelling fists of the three men. He was hit, more times than he could recall. Disoriented, he fell under the onslaught. Both brothers were trussed and gagged, and hauled into the back of a truck, and they lay in pained and frightened confusion. They had no time to react further before they were transported away from their momentary sanctuary.

* * *

><p>It was almost dark when May Adams came home. She tugged the screen door open, juggling her empty casserole dishes and pie tins. It was dark in the kitchen, Angus must have gone to bed. She switched on the light, and noticed that the stew was depleted. It pleased her that her boarders had accepted her offer. As she put down her things, she wrinkled her nose at the strong smell of whisky and frowned. Angus had no doubt gone back and pestered those boys for a drink. It smelled like he was more than successful. She called out to him, and was met only by the cat, circling her ankles and voicing it's complaint of hunger. Angus was supposed to feed him. She tsked and found the kibble, filling his bowl.<p>

When she proceeded to the parlour, she found the old man. He was snoring like thunder, sprawled on the flowery sofa, and stinking of drink. An empty bottle of something lay spilled on the wood floor.

"Oh for heaven's sake! Angus, wake up!" She shook him mercilessly until he finally croaked his drunken objections.

"Waddya want, woman? Leave an old man in peace!"

"You be quiet! Where did you get that liquor?" she demanded.

"Them boys out back." he grumbled, turning over and falling asleep again.

She was none too pleased. She left him there and marched around the house. When she saw the condition of the open door, she stopped. There was no light on inside the room. She called tentatively; "You there; are you home?" When there was no response, she nervously stepped in and switched on the light, and gasped. The room was in disarray. The night stand was upended, a bucket of water tipped over onto the floor. There were towels lying beside the bed, they looked like they were bloodied. She had no idea what to make of it, but she knew it wasn't good. She hurried back and telephoned her son.

* * *

><p>Russell Adams had just come in from work. As a game warden, he was automatically an outsider, despite his deep-rooted lineage. The local men treated him with curt civility, and nothing more, and they avoided him socially. It was a product of the job, but a man didn't turn down work if he could get it. He wasn't terribly hurt by it; the men he grew up with were louts and jackasses, as far as he was concerned. He was about to sit down with a well-earned beer when he got the anxious call from his mother. He knew May was a strong and confident old bird; if she was worried, then it was justified. He hopped back into his truck and drove out.<p>

* * *

><p>She met him in the driveway. "Oh I'm glad you came." she said, relieved.<p>

"What's going on, Ma?"

"Well your grandad is sotted, but he's fine, but there's something wrong with the boarders. The place is a mess, and...well, come and see." She led him around and the two surveyed the room.

Russell frowned. "The door was broke in from outside. Looks like there was a tussle. Who are these boarders?"

"A couple of young men, brothers; on their way to Bradford. They took the room for the one night. They seemed decent enough. I see their car is gone."

Russell picked up one of the towels, examining it in the light. "This is blood, Ma. Something is real wrong here. I want you to get Grandad up; I'm gonna drive the two of you over to the Baileys' for the night, I don't want you here. Did Grandad say anything about it?"

May shook her head, her face creased with worry. "I just woke him, and he went back to sleep. Maybe you should talk to him."

* * *

><p>May hurried to pack a few things while Russell woke the old man up. He rebuked Angus sharply when he complained, and he got a picture of what had happened finally. Angus told them about his visit with the boys, about Buell, and the resulting scuffle. He'd gone back to the room after the men left, to see if things were alright. When he found it empty, he took the bottle back with him to assuage his guilt, and had fallen asleep before he could alert May. "Frank gimme a wad of cash, told me to keep my yap shut. " he whined, handing the money to May.<p>

She threw it onto the counter in disgust. "What about my towels? They're all bloody! Did they say why?"

"One of those boys was hurt; he had his arm all bandaged up. They was up on Buell Farm, nosing around. I think it was the Sin Eater what got him."

Russell growled a curse. "Grandad, I told you that was nonsense! I'd be more inclined to think that that bastard Buell was behind that too. Whatever those boys were doing, they ran afoul of Frank and his cronies. Sonofabitch thinks he can do what he pleases, and law be damned. You two get out into the truck, I'm gonna call the station in Kinburn."

He was about to dial, when a cell phone on the floor began playing a tune.

* * *

><p>The road was brutally rough. Neither brother could see a damn thing, the black truck cap all but eliminated any remaining light. They bounced and rolled in the truck bed, helpless to do anything to remedy their situation. If the truck would just stay still for a moment, then perhaps one could find the hands of the other and untie them, but that wasn't happening. The driving only seemed to get worse, they were clearly off-road now. Sam could smell the woodsy scent of crushed pine needles; he knew they were heading deeper into the forest, perhaps up the mountain. They both rolled heavily against the tailgate as the incline sharpened, and Sam's hands found Dean's shoulder, and he grabbed onto a handful of fabric. He was able to touch his face, but he didn't respond.<p>

They were in the truck for some time, Sam estimated it at a half hour or so. He tried to make note of anything that he heard or smelled or felt, in case it would be helpful later. And he worried about Dean, lying limply beside him, as he tried to keep him pinned against the truck side to minimize the battering. Finally he felt the ground level off a little, and they stopped. He didn't know whether to be relieved or not. He heard voices, and the tailgate abruptly dropped, and they were hauled out roughly and thrown to the dirt. Sam looked around wildly, memorizing everything. It was dark, but there were floodlights illuminating the timber-framed doorway to what seemed to be a tunnel, he could see an old rusted metal sign above it. The entrance; an old mine apparently, was newly blocked with a heavy steel door system. There was a reverberating noise filling the air, and a deep hum. He nudged Dean, but still he remained immobile.

"Get up!" someone barked. Sam looked up and met the eyes of his affable driver. His demeanour was decidedly harsher now. He pointed his rifle at him, and Sam struggled to his feet. "You! I said up!" the scowling man yelled, prodding Dean. Dean groaned and got to his knees, as he slowly regained his faculties.

"Don't!" Sam growled. "Give him a second, let him shake it off!" With the gag, however, it didn't translate, but the sentiment was clear.

Frank Buell joined them now. He was disinclined to allow Dean the time to recover his equilibrium, he grabbed him be the shirt back and hauled him to his feet. Dean stayed there, swaying, leaning heavily on the truck and fighting a lingering blackness. A third man unlocked the very secure door, and they were forced inside. Again Sam memorized details as they moved along the descending space. The interior was rocky and non-descript, framed by old, dusty beams, and level-floored. It was clean; it definitely didn't look abandoned. They passed several doors leading off the main tunnel, they were all similarly secured, and had heavy electrical conduit leading to them. He counted his footsteps as they walked. Dean concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other successfully. When they had reached deep into the mine, they were pushed into an alcove, where both were tied to the heavy conduit that ran along the wall.

Frank Buell smiled an ugly, cold smile. "Well there you go, agents. This is what you came to see, aint it?" He turned and barked an order to the first man. "Colter; watch them. I gotta go check the systems."

Martin Colter nodded. He pulled a metal chair over, and sat down, while the others disappeared from view. He kept his gun at the ready, across his knees, and watched the Winchesters. Both sat, quiet for the moment; both secretly tested the security of their bonds, twisting their hands fruitlessly. Colter eyed them unhappily. "You shoulda never come here..." he said. "Shoulda left it alone."

Dean raised his head and swore at him, and even with the gag it came through loud and clear. Martin Colter shook his head and snorted.

* * *

><p>They were left there for well over an hour. Colter was growing bored, he fidgeted and shifted in his chair, checking his watch frequently. The taller captive stared at him relentlessly, it made him uneasy. The other one was lying on his side, and was trying to find a comfortable position, and he was moaning every few minutes.. It began to weigh on his nerves, if not his conscience.<p>

"Shut up, over there!" he barked to Dean in irritation. A muffled diatribe came from Sam, but it was unintelligible, which was probably for the better. Sam turned his stare away from his captor and back to his brother. He looked ashen, and in considerable pain. He knew Dean would be loathe to show these bastards any weakness, the fact that he was making any sound at all was significant. He wished he could speak to him. Dean stayed silent for a while, his eyes closed. But after a while he started to react again to the pain in his arm.

Martin Colter couldn't stand to hear it. The guy was either a pussy, or he was seriously hurting. He just wanted this thing to be finished, and wished Buell would hurry up. "I said quit your whining!" He gave Dean a half-hearted kick for emphasis. Dean winced and was silent. He wasn't even aware he'd been making sounds, but with his hands tied so tightly behind him, the twisting pull on his arm and shoulder was excruciating. He was desperate to stay alert, but he was growing weaker, he drifted and moaned softly again. Stir crazy now, Colter stood up. "Jesus christ, he's been going on since he got here! What the hell's wrong with him?"

Sam stared daggers at him and shrugged a shoulder toward his gag with an expression that telegraphed clearly what he was thinking. Colter swore, reached over and tugged it off.

It took everything Sam had to remain civil. He spat out the lint from his mouth and licked his parched lips. "He's hurt, alright? He broke his arm this afternoon, and it's open and bleeding. Look, you've got us now, I get that. But there's no reason to put him through that.. I'm not asking you for anything that'll get you in trouble; just , please...untie his arms and re-tie them in front. If his sounds are getting on your nerves, then that'll help."

Colter snorted. "Oh yeah, sure. Maybe I should untie his feet too, cuz they itch. And while I'm at it, how 'bout I loosen you too, maybe fetch you all a nice cup of tea?"

"Look at it yourself!" Sam roared. "I'm not asking anything for me, just be a little human for christ's sake!"

Colter scowled, but he relented. He rolled Dean over with a boot and shone his flashlight over his arm. When he saw the dark red stain soaking the bandage and his shirt back, and the makeshift splint, he rubbed his jaw and sighed angrily. He was not a man who was by any description decent, but he didn't delight an other's suffering. That was Buell's way, not his.

"Fine!" he growled. "I'll switch them, just to shut him the hell up. But if you make me regret this, I'll kick his goddamn head in, and yours too!" He bent down and removed Dean's gag, since they were deep in the mine, and it no longer mattered. He swiftly loosened the rope. It was sticky with blood, he pulled Dean's hands roughly to the front, holding them there while he rubbed the rope in the dust to dry it off. Dean shuddered at the movement, but he kept his suffering silent as Colter re-tied his wrists.

"Thanks." he said quietly. Colter stepped back and nodded curtly. Having seen the cause of his captive's complaint, he was now intensely uncomfortable, and he decided to find Frank, eager to see this business done with. He left the brothers alone in the chilly quiet.

* * *

><p>Sam leaned closer. "Dean? How are you doing, is that any better..?"<p>

"Yeah, thanks." He shifted up to sit against the cold rocky wall, and surveyed their surroundings. "So we're underground. Any idea where?"

Sam shook his head. "No. All I saw was a sign that said Sutler Mines Number Five. Mean's nothing to me. But it must be near those wind turbines; I could hear them. And look at the electrical cables coming in, they're massive. They're doing something down here that they need a hell of a lot of juice for."

Dean grunted. "You think they found something worth digging for again? Doesn't look like coal, there's no black dust around. Maybe gold?"

"Doubt it. As far as I know, this wasn't a gold rush area. Maybe it was silver, I don't know. Freaking cold in here, though."

"Just a bit." Dean agreed, shivering. In truth, he was chilled to the bone, his mouth so dry that he could barely wet his lips. He'd begun to feel a pounding headache, the constant bleeding was dehydrating him. "So, Sammy...what's the master plan?"

Sam sighed and pulled uselessly at the rope that tied him to the conduit. "I was kinda hoping you had one."


	8. Chapter 8

08

Russell Adams did what he thought was best, he answered the ring. "..Hello?"

_"Dean? Where the hell have you been? I've been trying to get a hold of you for the past hour, boy_!"

Russell cleared his throat. "Uh...this isn't Dean here. It's Russell Adams; your friend rented a room from my family."

There was a pause. _"Oh. Well, why do you have this phone?_"

Russ sighed. "Look, I don't know your friend, or you; but I can tell you that things aren't right here. There was a problem; the room's a mess, and your two friends have gone missing."

Bobby's heart skipped a beat. -_aw not now-"My name's Bob Singer, those boys are my nephews. And what do you mean by problem?"_

Russell described what he knew thus far. When Bobby had heard it, he cursed under his breath. _"Listen; they were there cuz they were supposed to meet me. I was calling to tell them that my appointment in Bradford was a bust. I'm about two hours shy of it, can you give me directions to where you are?"_

"Shy...like north or south? You're either close or you got a drive ahead."

Bobby relayed his position, and Russell directed him. "You're close then. Stay on 29 until you see the exit for Kinburn. You don't want to go as far as that, but you'll see a sign for Spencerville, hang a left there. I can meet you at the post office, it's right on the road."

Bobby agreed, and Russell decided to wait with going to the station until he'd met with him. But in the mean time, he still wanted his kin somewhere out of any possible harm. "Ok, Ma. That was a relative of your boys. I'm going to meet up with him at the post office. I want you and grandad to take your truck to Baileys' farm, can you do that?"

May scowled. "Russell, I'm not some frilly hothouse flower. I'm not scared of Frank Buell, and I won't flee my house the moment there's some kerfuffle!"

"I know, Ma. But just the same I don't know these boys, I don't know this uncle, and more than that, I _do_ know Frank Buell. Just do this for me, alright? I can only worry so much."

She stood for a moment, hands on her hips. But she softened at his earnest expression of concern. "Well alright, Russell, but only for you. Besides, I don't want your grandad to get into any more nonsense tonight. T_sk_, the drunken old piece of gristle; if I he came to grief your daddy; god rest him, would be rolling in his grave." She turned away and went indoors. Russell smiled to himself. His Ma was a fierce mother bear, but her father-in-law was her greatest challenge. He was glad they would be out of harm's way, should harm decide to join this little party. And somehow, he had a feeling it might...

* * *

><p>Sam wore his heart on his sleeve. Dean knew his little brother was looking to him for leadership now, it was how things worked. Sam always had his back, no question, but it was up to Dean to lead when their world got complicated. He started by stating the obvious. " Bottom line; we've got to get the hell out of here. I'm guessing Buell will be back soon. I don't think he's going to want to have any long discussions, whatever his problem with us is."<p>

Sam 's pinched expression relaxed slightly. Dean might be in rough shape, but he was still capable and in charge, maybe things would be ok... He shifted a little, shrugging off the chill that the cold floor and wall imparted. In doing so, he felt an uncomfortable lump under his ankle. "Oh! Shit!"

"What?"

Sam looked at Dean, a renewed hope shining in his eyes. "When I went looking for you, I stuck my folding knife in my sock, it's still here!"

"You're kidding me-"

But with his hands behind him and tied to the wires, Sam had no hope of reaching his feet. He bent and twisted and contorted, but he couldn't get near enough. He was too far away from Dean, he couldn't have him pull it either. He tried to snag it with his teeth, but after several tiring tries, he rested, dejected. "aw man, I can't believe it.." he muttered.

Dean was working his own tied hands. Every twist was agony, but the ropes had been stiffened by the blood and dust. Colter had done his best when he'd retied his hands in front, but the knots were affected by the filth coating them. They were definitely loosening. Sam watched as he worked them, he could see the sweat beading on his brother's forehead. Dean glanced up, intense and driven. "They're coming-" he whispered.

Sam thought he meant the knots. Unfortunately he was wrong, Dean could see the group of men turning the corner and approaching. "Sam-" he warned.

Sam could only nod. Within seconds, Frank Buell and his two lackeys were back in the space shared by the Winchesters.

Frank stood and stared at them. Finally he spoke. "So. Here we all are." He crouched, so that he could speak directly into Dean's face. "You made a big mistake coming here, Mr Federal Agent. You think I don't know who you really are?"

Dean glanced feverishly at Sam, momentarily panicked that their true identities were known. He didn't know where this was going...

But Buell kept talking. "You think I'm some sort of back-woods half-wit? I know exactly why you come all the way out here. You, and buddy here; you're DEA.."

Dean was struck dumb. _DEA? Drug Enforcement..?_ So Buell thought they were some sort of narcs, and that was apparently a big problem for all of them. It struck him suddenly; the secrecy, the wealth...the steel doors, the windmills, the power usage. Buell was running a grow-op; they'd stumbled into a bona fide Copperhead Road..He returned Frank's stare defiantly, with a mix of admiration and disgust. "Wow...John Lee Pettimore, in the flesh."

The song reference was not lost on Buell. "That's right, asshole. I knew what you was the second I saw you in the store. You're trying to find where I'm growin'. Well, now you know. Look around you; this is the best kept little secret in the state. Me and my friends; we're gettin' rich, while the stupid bastards around here sit on their thumbs and whine about the hard times, just like they always done. You have no idea how many miles of tunnels are in these hills; abandoned, most of'em unknown. I can grow year round, and nothing the DEA has in the air will ever pick up on it. No heat signatures from way down here. No plants visible outside. No power use showing; I'm so off-grid out here that I could run my own damn country and nobody would have a goddamned clue." He leaned closer, breathing into Dean's face. "I bet you're real thrilled to break your big case now, ain't you? All your hunches come true...too bad nobody'll ever know." He laughed, and hauled back a fist, punching his glaring captive on the jaw. Dean shook his head, trying to clear away the maelstrom of lights.

"NO!" Sam yelled. Buell turned to him. "We're not Feds! Come on, that was a fake ID, it was a piece of shit, couldn't you tell that?"

Buell cocked his head a little. "Fake. Now why would he do that?"

Sam wracked his brain. "Because we're really private investigators. Not Feds, and sure as hell not DEA! The guy you beat up, the electrical safety inspector; it was his family that hired us! They paid us to look for anything to pin on you so they could sue you in civil court! They want money! Look, this is just a job for us, we don't give a shit either way-"

Both Dean and Frank Buell stared at him, intrigued. Buell frowned: "Why should I believe you?"

"Because...look at us! Do we look like feds? We're too damned young to be that high up! Look at what we're driving, does that look standard issue?" Sam was grasping at straws, but he was reaching his mark. Frank turned back to Dean.

"Private dicks. Figures. Who exactly hired you?"

Dean knew that Angus had never mentioned the identity of Buell's reason for incarceration. He made up a name. "Marcy Peterson. She's his sister, married. They're looking for any info to nail you with, maybe to settle privately. You messed him up pretty good; they want something out of it."

Buell sat back, he swore and laughed. "Well hell, boys, wish I'da known that earlier. Coulda saved us all a whole lotta trouble if I'd known you were for sale. Guess I should have figured you wasn't Washington stock when I saw that car. Whose is it, anyway?"

"Mine." Dean growled.

Frank smiled. "Nice old wreck, ain't it? Bet you're real proud of her. She's what, a 68? You got a frikkin' arsenal in the trunk too, don't you? Lotta weird shit in there. I don't know what you and Buddy here are into, but that's a small fortune in silver for one thing. And all the rest of it-" He whistled and shook his head, laughing. "Yeah, now that I think about it, nothing about you or that car says Fed to me."

Sam visibly relaxed. But Dean remained tense and wary. Just because they were now 'private investigators' instead of Law, didn't mean they were any safer. And unfortunately, his instincts were usually right.

Buell's smile faded. "Don't matter none whether you're narcs or not. You fell down the wrong rabbit hole." He leaned closer to Dean, as if conspiratorily, and laid a hand on his bandaged arm. He squeezed, just a little. "You want to know a funny thing? Bradford Fair is in a week. Biggest event is the Demolition Derby. Now, I wasn't gonna enter nothing this year; got a lot going on, you know... But now, with that old Chev falling into my lap; hell, I think I just might after all!"

He grinned at the raw horror on his captive's face. He'd guessed right that car was a cherished thing. Dean spluttered and struggled and Buell's smile widened.

"Yeah...I got my boys paintin' her up right now; bright orange, big numbers on the side. All I need now is to pull the glass, weld in a roll cage and bash the shit out of her." He squeezed hard now, brutally twisting Dean's arm. It had the desired effect. Dean's back was rigid, pressed hard against the rock wall, he gritted his teeth and blinked away tears, as he swore and raged at his captor until he was dizzy with exhaustion. Sam howled at Buell to stop but Buell just laughed. Martin Colter laughed along with him, as was required, but he everted his eyes. Finally Frank let go and stood back up.

"Wish I could stay longer with you all, but I've got shipments going out. I'll come back and visit with you later." His jovial manner changed suddenly. "Seriously, boys; you made a real bad choice here, real unfortunate. Too bad." He planted a hard kick against Dean's head, snapping it back with violence. His scrawny companion had a similar parting gift for Sam, delivered with the butt of his rifle.. When he was satisfied that both were unconscious, he ordered his men to follow him and left.

* * *

><p>Bobby's fingers drummed nervously on the steering wheel as he drove. Not only did his reason for coming all the way out to this backwoods paradise fall through, but now he had somehow led the Winchesters into danger. No, he knew better than that...Dean always dove head first into trouble like it was a hot tub full of playboy bunnies. But his anger was sharp and bitter. The Bradford thing was a good lead, it should have been worth it. He'd learned the name of a man who had supposedly managed to beat his deal with the devil. It wasn't a case of cheating death, or running scared just ahead of the snapping hellhound jaws, the man was free and clear, by some other means. Bobby had to know just what those means were. But before he got to Bradford, he received the news that his contact was dead. He died a normal, run-of-the mill death, a heart attack, apparently. No bloody end, no weeping and gnashing of teeth. Their opportunity to learn his secret went into the ground along with him. And now <em>this<em>. He sighed and swore to himself. It was a really crappy day.

He thought about the man who'd answered Dean's phone. Seemed normal enough. Bobby was well acquainted with the way people could be in these isolated areas; closed mouthed and loyal to their own. At least he'd agreed to meet him, and Bobby had talked him into waiting on the call to state troopers. That was a meagre plus, at least. He saw the sign that Adams had mentioned. A few more miles of anxious driving, and the Post Office loomed up ahead. He pulled in, and saw a man in a pick-up wave. Bobby pulled up beside him and rolled down his window. "Russ Adams?"

Russell nodded. "Follow me." The two drove back to May Adams' house.

Once there, they introduced themselves grimly. Russell liked the look of the man; he seemed like a working type, and he had an honest way of talking. Bobby had a similar feeling of trust. Russell filled him in on what he'd learned from May and Angus, and they entered the Winchesters' room. He stood by as Bobby examined the mess. Bobby picked up the bloody towel and scowled. "Looks like he got himself into some something, alright. This ain't no little scratch."

Russell agreed. "That's what I figured. We'd best be finding him soon, or there ain't gonna be reason to anymore." He sighed angrily. "Whatever's going on, we know Frank Buell is at the heart of it. Sonofabitch runs this little corner like it was his own personal kingdom. He keeps a cabin somewhere on Beatty Mountain. But best way to find him would be to head right up to where he's got his wind turbines, we can follow the wires from there."

Bobby was leary of involving a stranger. This was dangerous business, and he voiced as much to Russell. Russell smiled a little. "Look, no disrespect, but you ain't exactly a young man no more. This is rough country, and you wouldn't last an hour before you got lost. I know these hills like the back of my hand. I grew up on 'em, and I work in them. And no matter what your kin got themselves into; Frank Buell came to my family's house and kicked in my door. That kind of thing don't go unanswered."

Bobby nodded. "Fair enough. And I appreciate the guidance out there, especially with it being almost dark. Do you want to head out right now, or wait?"

Russell frowned. "Don't think we have a choice no more. We'll have to get back to my place and put some things together. Can you handle a gun?"

Bobby nodded grimly. "Yeah. I have what I need with me."

"Good. Pray we don't need it."

* * *

><p><em>Chapter End Notes:<em>

_For reference, Copperhead Road is a sort of hillbilly anthem song by Steve Earle. John Lee Pettimore is the character from who's pov it is sung; a moonshiner's decendent who becomes a pot grower._


	9. Chapter 9

9

Sam was startled at the touch of hands to his battered face, and he reacted sharply. He flinched, growling, and shoved his attacker away with his tied feet. It brought a hearty string of curses.

"Ow! Quit it! -jesus, Sam, it's me!" Dean hissed angrily. He got back up to his knees and finished what he was trying to do, cutting Sam free of his bonds as the younger Winchester shook away the cobwebs.

"Sorry." He sat up and rubbed his bruised temple. "How'd you get free?"

Dean shrugged, glancing around nervously. "It was slippery enough for me to get it off." The ropes were a reddish pile on the floor. Sam glanced at the sodden bandage, angrily remembering Buell's relentless grip on Dean's arm. True enough, the blood still trickled down over Dean's fingers. He remembered, too, the talk about the car. He hoped, he prayed, that Buell was just talking. Dean finished sawing at the nylon twine, and Sam flicked the segments away. They were free, at least for the moment. Dean took a second to grill his brother about his state. He had, after all, been whacked repeatedly on his head, Dean wanted to be sure he was able to think and function without hindrance. They couldn't afford to make any false steps now.

Sam twisted away from his ministrations. "I said I'm fine! You're the bigger worry, Dean! Are _you _able to think clearly?"

"As much as ever." He smiled wryly. "C'mon; we've got to find our way back out of this freaking rat-hole. Do you remember anything that might be useful? I was just working at keeping up to you while we were walking down here."

Sam nodded. "I think I have a pretty good idea. But there will be people; somebody's going to be posted at the entrance for sure."

"Then we'll deal with it. Just hope he's got some decently big feet, I'm shoeless here."

Sam glanced at his brother's sock feet. Right; the laceless boots had been discarded when Dean had lain down on the bed at May's. Buell had hardly given them the time to grab such luxuries before they were hauled away. They rose in unison, taking a moment to stabilize and get their bearings, and Sam directed their skulking travel down the rocky corridors.

They stopped and hugged the wall when voices seemed to approach, afraid to breathe. There was no other cover to be had. But the voices diminished again, and Dean glanced at Sam, nodding to him to continue on. The second time they heard words, they seemed to grow louder. Dean gestured toward a doorway, and they ducked inside a side tunnel. It was empty, with the exception of row upon row of towering, green, fragrant plants. Their heads were crowned by light fixtures, their roots embedded in a sophisticated hydroponic system. They were a thing of beauty. Dean whistled softly and grinned at Sam, making motions to fill their pockets with the spiky leaves. Sam shook his head in annoyance.

"Don't be an ass!" he hissed. Dean rolled his eyes and they waited in silence until it seemed safe to venture back out. Sam pulled the door open slowly, and glanced around. It seemed clear. They took to the main tunnel again, and after several twists and turns, Sam led them up to where the tunnel connected with the outside world. They were that close to freedom. The only thing standing in their way was the very capable-looking man seated with bored disinterest at the doorway. He held a shotgun loosely in one of his hands as he flipped lazily through a skin mag. Dean caught Sam's eye, and held his hand up. He dropped each finger in a countdown of three, and when no digits remained he ran headlong and threw himself at the guard. The man was caught entirely unawares; bowled over backward in his flimsy lawnchair, and Dean clamped a hand over his mouth before he could even think to yell. His plan did not extend to what should happen next, but Sam followed closely, and he delivered a crushing blow to the pinned man's face. It was enough to turn his expression from shock to blandness, then to slumber. Dean gave a thumbs up to his brother, and Sam busied himself by tying the guard with his own coat sleeves. When they were assured he was immobile, Dean took a moment to catch his breath. His shoulder was screaming from the impact, but he forced himself to hide it. Instead, he smiled at Sam, gesturing at the unconscious man's feet. Sam grinned back, and quickly stripped him of his footware, tossing each shoe to Dean. Dean sat, pulling the hiking boots onto his own feet with an expression of distaste. -_Nothing quite like wearing a hillbilly's warm, steamy boots- _They were a few sizes too big, but at the moment he wasn't complaining.

Dean tied them as Sam turned the half-dozen deadbolts on the door. Suitably shod again, Dean grabbed the gun, and ransacked the man's pockets for ammunition, shoving shells into his jeans. When they were ready, they slipped quietly through the steel door, out into the fragrant and velvet darkness of the forest.

* * *

><p>Bobby followed Russell Adams. Russell had outfitted them both with backpacks, complete with flashlights, ammunition, rope, anything that could be useful in the woods. Bobby had added his own firearms, plus a few things he needed for his own peace of mind, while Russ carried a well-stocked first aid kit.<p>

The travelling was difficult in the dark. Bobby was more than appreciative that there was an experienced pair of eyes guiding the foray. He had his own set of skills, but they were of limited use here amongst the trees. Russell had stated that Buell was living on the mountain, but Frank Buell was himself an experienced woodsman; if he didn't want his home base to be found, then it wouldn't be. Russell knew that the huge wind generating towers would have some significant connection to whatever it was that Buell was immersed in. If they started at their base, and followed along where the power was being directed, then surely they would find out what was going on.

They had started with the newly forged road at Buell farm. It was a convenient path to higher ground, and they followed it with ease. They passed the flat clearing with its ghostly wooden ruins, skirting the meadow and heading deeper along less and less defined paths. Bobby looked down, startled, as they passed the old farm. His EMF meter, always part of his gear, had blipped, lighting up briefly. But it remained silent after that. He said nothing to Russell; the man knew the forest, but there was no sense in alarming him about anything less tangible. Russell Adams seemed to navigate by some sixth sense, Bobby was certain that he would have been lost and useless by now without the guide. They followed deer trails and hiking paths, on a constant ascent. The trails were rocky and winding, involving a great deal of scrambling and climbing over fractured rock faces slick with lichen and moss, or hollows filled with tangled blackberry and wild rose canes. They were scratched bloody, and the chill of the approaching night was already making their breath condense. Russell stopped frequently to allow his neophyte companion to catch his breath. Soon Bobby could hear the rhythmic beat of the rotating vanes of the turbines. They were nearing the summit, where the windmills turned lazily in the quiet night air.

Near the steel tower of one of the turbines, Russell stopped. They took a moment to recharge, eating chocolate bars and draining a few of their water bottles. He laid out their strategy for Bobby. "We should keep quiet, from here on. Don't know where these bastards are, so I don't want to give away our position with pointless chatter, agreed?"

Bobby nodded wearily.

Russell continued in a hoarse whisper. "These mills should be feeding power to whatever that SOB is doing. We need to find where they go, and follow those lines. The ground here's rocky, so I doubt that they'll be underground." His wisdom was sound. Buell would have had to dynamite a channel through the bedrock to bury his power lines, and even he couldn't pull that off without attracting unwanted attention. They had no trouble finding the cable; it led away from the towers like some massive, twisting spinal cord, feeding the mystery somewhere in the distance.

Finding the cable was easy. Following it was another matter. Frank Buell had sought to hide it as best as he could, using the natural features of the land to camouflage and protect it. Bobby and Russ Adams were obliged to crawl over the broken rock formations, down into the dank and steep ravines, because the alternative was to lose the trail and be left standing, while Dean and Sam Winchester fell deeper into peril. Russell had no emotion invested in these strangers, but he was a conscientious man. They were taken against their will from the sanctity of his family's house, and that was something he could not abide. And he saw the determination and grit of his older companion. Whoever, whatever this Bob Singer was, he was a loyal and dogged supporter of his kin. That carried considerable weight with Russell Adams.

It was fully dark when they found where the cable crossed a well-used ATV trail. Here, it began to run parallel to the path. They could see, by the light of their flashlights, that the makeshift road was recently used; clods of dirt were freshly turned, ruts damp with water that had yet to drain away..

* * *

><p>Once out in the cool night air, the brothers exchanged looks. Neither had any real idea in which direction to head. Sam gestured toward the ATV road. Dean shook his head. "Too visible-" he whispered. "That's the first place they'll start looking." They could walk a parallel course, but it was still too risky, any snap of a twig could alert the searchers following the road.<p>

"Guess we should just head downwards, then." Sam ventured. "I mean, that's our ultimate goal, right? Maybe if we find a stream, we should just keep with it; it'll be heading down to lower ground."

Dean nodded his agreement. He hugged his arms to his middle to ward off the cold, lamenting silently that they hadn't stripped their doorman of his coat as well as his footware. At least Sam was wearing his jacket, Dean had only his long sleeved tee shirt, and it was wet with blood in several places. It made for a chilly prospect. Several times Sam had tried to put his big coat over Dean, but he refused, not wanting to feel hampered. But as long as they kept moving, it would be fine. And the temperature at least kept the mosquitos at bay. He scanned around, trying to survey the terrain in the poor light of dusk. It was all black shadows, and even blacker hollows. But there was a definite drop in elevation in one direction. He pointed, and Sam agreed. Choice decided, they crept out into the dark.

The light feature on Sam's watch was helpful. It cast a cool, blue glow when the button was pressed, they used it sparingly, only when they paused, to illuminate their next choice of ground. A cellphone would have been brighter, but neither had one handy at this critical time. One of those would have been handy on a few levels. They hadn't gone very far when they could hear a number of angry voices floating down from the tunnel mouth. The unconscious doorman had been found, and a commotion could be heard. Dean cursed quietly and put a cautioning hand on Sam's arm, pantomiming silence. They stayed still, hidden somewhat behind a formation of tumbled rock. When they were reasonably sure that the voices were heading away down the main trail, they moved on again, as silently as the forest floor would allow. More than once, they stopped, listening tensely as a shout echoed amongst the trees. Other sounds confused the issue; some lonely-sounding night bird calling intermittently, the wind rustling leaves. And not too far away, the unmistakable burble of water flowing over stones. It was the stream they sought, the avenue by which they could find their way to the highway.

* * *

><p>Bobby looked to Russell for his input now. Russell was sure that they were on the right track. "I don't think we should stay on this road, though. It's gonna be too visible. I can see lights down there, we can head towards that, but we'll stay off the track." Bobby nodded his agreement. They followed the general direction that the ATV path carved, careful to stay under any radar. Within a short time, they had found themselves discreetly observing the entrance to Sutler Mines #5. Russell crouched, watching. <em>What the hell was that bastard up to way out here, and underground?<em>

Bobby crept as close as he dared, listening keenly to the group of angry men standing there. He quickly ascertained what their issue was. He gestured to Russ. "Looks like the boys managed to spring themselves." he whispered. Russell nodded, and Bobby continued, "If I know Dean at all, he'll be avoiding the easy way down the mountain, there's no point following that track anymore. Do you know any other ways down?"

Russell thought for a moment. "Spencer creek starts up here. Do you think they would have thought of following it down?"

"If that's the next logical way, then yeah, I'd say so."

Russell turned their travel in that direction. Due to his experience, and his profession, Russ Adams knew how to track. He soon found telltale signs that some one had been thinking the same way. They followed the indicators, and they came across the little creek. Bobby was relieved, but when Russell produced his UV light, his tension cranked up again. As a game warden, Russell was constantly vigilant about poaching. The worst sort of hunters; poachers shot at deer in any season, regardless of the breeding season, or the numbers. And very often, they shot wild, hitting and wounding animals, leaving the poor creatures to wander, often dying cruel and agonized deaths. Russell used the UV to track blood trails, finding and dispatching injured animals that had been abandoned to their suffering.

He found a blood trail here.

* * *

><p>"Water? Am I hearing water?" Dean demanded.<p>

Sam nodded. "I think so-" Before he could add to that, his brother was moving clumsily toward the sounds of the stream. It hadn't occurred to Sam, but Dean was ravenous with thirst. Sam followed his crashing path downwards, terrified that the sounds would alert Buell and his men. "Dean!" he hissed in warning, over and over. Dean ignored him, and Sam found him at the water's edge, drinking like a horse that had walked through a desert. When he saw that, Sam berated himself in silence. _-of course- _Dean had lost blood, and had been expending energy he could barely afford; of _course _he was thirsty. Sam waited quietly while his brother consumed his fill of the cold mountain water.

"Better..?" he whispered hopefully, when Dean had finally sat back, wiping his face dry with his sleeve.

Dean nodded. "I think I swallowed a frog with that last mouthful. " he snorted. He did feel a little better.

Now that they had found their direction, they pushed onward with renewed energy. Buell and his lackeys still seemed to be following the ATV trail, no one was bothering to check their chosen route, at least not yet. They kept to the stream. It was not easy travel; the creek didn't simply lead them down the mountain like arrows painted on the floor of an IKEA store. The water disappeared occasionally in boggy or swampy areas, and reappeared in unexpected places. Beavers had damned the rivulet in one place, creating a large and shallow pond. They had to skirt it's soggy edge for some distance, sliding through dank, black peaty loam that soaked their ankles and filled their nostrils with the sewage smell of decay. But the downward direction continued uninterrupted, regardless of the difficulty. At least they knew that they weren't wandering astray.

After what seemed like hours, Sam tried to get his brother to take a break. But Dean rebuffed any attempt he made to slow down. He had a wildness in his eyes that sort of scared Sam. He'd tried to get him to halt, to rest, just long enough to check him over, at least to rewrap the bandage that sagged loosely from his forearm. The wooden spoon had long since rejoined the sticks and branches of the forest floor. But Dean steadfastly refused, keenly aware of the threat that followed them now in this unfamiliar territory. There were many places where Dean felt he was master of his realm, but the woods was not one of them. It was a serious disadvantage; their pursuers knew the land well. Dean was battling blood loss and dehydration, and had been for nearly twenty four hours now. But now, he was beginning to feel something else. He felt flushed, a heat had begun to radiate from his face, it was more than simply exertion. As they stumbled along through the inhospitable and uneven terrain, he found it increasingly difficult to keep from tripping on the roots and stones. He knew he should step more carefully, pay closer attention, but he felt a strange disconnect, and his feet would simply not obey such precise orders. The shotgun slung over his back seemed insanely heavy. Sam had noticed, and he relieved him of that burden. More than once he found it necessary to steady him as they forged on.

They were both feeling the cold, but Dean shivered so hard now that he could hardly whisper coherently. Sam finally had enough. He stopped Dean silently, and with a heavy and unyielding hand, he forced him to sit on a rocky ledge.

"We're wasting time!" Dean growled.

"Shut up...this'll only take a minute." Sam shrugged off his jacket, dropping it over his brother's shoulders. He took off his watch and shone its light over Dean's injured limb, finding the end of the bandage, and he carefully unwound the loose, wet cotton. When it was free, he wrung it out as well as he could and found another piece of wood to use as a splint.

"Hurry up!" Dean whispered, irritated. He was so tired, he was afraid that if he sat much longer he'd find it difficult to get up and moving again. Even in the poor light, Sam could see the dark line of fresh blood snaking away from the wound. He re-tied the cloth strip as tightly as he could, winding in the stick as Dean flinched and swore softly.

He worried about that blood. "Do you think maybe we should tie it off again? You're still bleeding a fair bit.."

Dean shook his head. "I need to feel my fingers. I can't grip much but I don't want to be caught one-handed if they find us." It was sound reasoning under the circumstances. Sam left his doctoring at that for now. Sam took a chance and rested his hand against Dean's cheek. He felt the heat. "Are you sure you feel ok? You feel hot to me."

Dean scowled at him. "It's not easy, ok? Yeah, so I'm a little hot; what do you expect? I hate the freaking woods! It's not like I do this every day, I'm not an extreme fitness freak like you!" He got up angrily. "Well? are you coming or not?"

Sam sighed and followed him. His mind whirled as he went. Dean was a stubborn SOB. His wound was so deep and so dirty, contamination was inevitable. If they's just gotten on the road before Angus had come, Dean would have been patched up and they'd be in Bradford having beer and wings with Bobby by now. He was absorbed by that train of thought when he was startled by the reverberating shot.

"Sam!" Dean hissed. "Get down!"

Sam dove, and another series of shots rang out. The brothers rolled along the dank ground, keeping their heads from being targets. They stopped, panting, and listening. A few more bullets whizzed through the trees, with no real target. Dean was sure that they were just guessing now. He gestured to Sam. "-stay down; just keep along the stream!" he whispered. They crawled along on their bellies, not daring to look up. Another random shot rang through the trees, and they heard voices wane into the distance. Finally they felt safe enough to stand.

* * *

><p>Adrenalin is an amazing thing. While it courses through your veins, nothing is impossible. Your own state, and the conditions around you are almost irrelevant; you blaze ahead and tackle the dragons until they are vanquished. But god-forbid it runs out before the battle's done. Your body is left to struggle on, beaten, weakened, while the dragons regroup. Dean had finally hit his wall. He stumbled by the stream side, and fell to his knees, clutching his arm to his side and panting in the cold. "Sam-"<p>

Sam whipped around. He saw his brother falter, and leapt to soften his fall. Dean crumpled to the forest floor, exhausted and in pain.

"Dean, you alright? Dean?" Sam repeated anxiously..

"Tired." he managed. His ears were buzzing, it muffled all other sound. The dark shapes of the forest were blending into black, and the cold that surrounded them seemed to wrap around him now like wet linens. He wanted to say more, to reassure Sam that all he needed was moment or two. He'd get up and keep going, after a short rest. He'd lead his little brother to safety...

But his mouth refused to form the words. He felt Sam's hands take hold of him, felt him lift him from the damp leaves. He wanted to object..._I just need a minute...just a few minutes..._but after a moment he stopped feeling anything.


	10. Chapter 10

10

"Get down!" Russell hissed. He didn't have to; Bobby was already crawling along the forest floor, scrambling in his coat for his pistol. He signalled to him that he was prepared, and they both stayed motionless, barely breathing as they waited until the voices and flying bullets ceased. They raised their heads several times, only to be convinced to stay down by another random shot. Finally the threat moved away, and Russell motioned to Bobby to continue moving forward. They were even more careful to stay low and quiet now as they followed the small creek. Russell knew that they were on the right track, the UV was fluorescing a significant trail of blood drops. He grimly showed it to his worried companion.

"Damn it!" Bobby muttered. _What the hell has that idiot got himself into now_-? Russell stopped him and pointed. Somewhere ahead, some distance away, he was sure he'd seen a tiny flash of bluish light. He pointed, and the two squinted, watching for a recurrence. Bobby's eyesight was not nearly as clear as his younger companion's; when Russell exclaimed "There!" again, he had to take his word for it. Something was definitely moving ahead, and in Russell Adams' experience, no doe or buck ever carried a flashlight. Relieved, Bobby was all for running headlong now to rescue his friends from their latest catastrophe, but his companion cautioned quietly; "Wait! We don't know if it's your boys, or somebody who's chasing them. Don't go showing yourself until we know which we have here; if we alert the wrong party, we'll all be dead!"

Bobby saw the wisdom in that. They crept forward at an agonizingly slow pace, gaining on their quarry by increments. Bobby was ready to tear his hair out, but he kept his impatience in check and followed Russell's lead.

* * *

><p>Sam was near panic. "No, not now, c'mon Dean!" he groaned, rolling his brother over in the darkness. He lifted his head and held him, tapping his face and raising his eyelids, to no avail. He found his pulse, and relieved, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment to steady his nerves. Dean had passed out; <em>of course <em>he'd passed out, he was bleeding and hurt and tired. Sam pulled him away from the wet creek edge, finding drier ground, where he laid him out and shone his watch light over him again. He seemed to be resting peacefully. Maybe it was a good thing at the moment, Dean had steadfastly ignored Sam's attempts to slow him down, at least this was a sort of rest. He tried to see through the gloom, to gauge whether there was any shelter available. From what he could make out, there was a jumble of fractured rock rising above the ground, not too distant. They looked like they were large enough to offer some protective walls, and if there was a hollow amongst them...

He turned back to Dean. He was alarmed by the heat he felt when he touched him, even in the chill. Dean was damp and sweating now, where he'd shivered so violently with the cold before. He made up his mind; they needed to hole up. He gripped Dean under his arms, and began the arduous task of dragging him to his chosen sanctuary. Dean moaned a complaint, but he didn't regain consiousness. It was hardly a silent undertaking. Sam and his heavy burden snapped dry twigs and crackled leaves as they moved, but there was nothing he could do at this point. He was tired and bruised himself and strength and the ability to maintain stealth were waning for him as well. He prayed that their pursuers would not hear.

He deposited his brother at the base of the rocks and caught his breath. He left him for a moment, scrambling up the stones in search of a suitable place. He found it; a spongy, moss padded trough between the boulders that could accommodate the both of them. It had an overhang of rock at one end, cave-like. He couldn't tell how deep it went, or if it even went any further than what he could see. He silently prayed that it had no fauna within that would take exception to their use of it. He sighed wearily and rubbed sweat from his eyes, before making his way back down. He had no idea how he was going to get Dean up and over the rocks to shelter; he didn't think he could carry him, not anymore, after their rough night thus far. He blinked away the gritty feeling in his eyes. He had a splitting headache thanks to the blow from the weasel's gun stock; he could still taste the salt of blood that had streamed into his mouth. It made him angry, and he hoped there'd be a chance to return that little favour. He got up from the stone he sat on and found his way back down.

He was greeted by a shock. The place where he'd left Dean was empty. The gun that he'd placed beside him was gone. He whipped around, straining to see him. "Dean?" he tried, keeping his voice low. There was no answer. He tried a few more times, and panicking, he rushed blind through the undergrowth in search of him. All he could see was the silvery outline of trees, and a velvety blackness between. He stopped, panting, encircled by the oppressive trunks, and without a clue which way to turn. His eyes prickled with furious and fearful tears, and he called his name again, louder now. In the seconds after, there came a crashing and cursing from the brush ahead, and more voices than just his brother's. Sam pulled the knife from his pocket. He gripped it hard, and he turned and bowled through the greenery. He stopped cold at what greeted him-

* * *

><p>Bobby followed Russell Adams. He could no longer hear or see evidence of those ahead of them, but the other man followed his trail like a determined bloodhound. He wished they could safely use their flashlights; he was tripped up constantly by unseen stones and branches. Russell seemed to have the eyes of a cat, and more than once he turned to his noisy companion, frustrated and frowning. Russell knew this area well. He knew what lay ahead, and why it was important. He wanted to confront their quarry before they had a chance to hide amongst the rocks, where they could pick both he and Bobby off at their leisure. And if it was the Winchesters, well, he still didn't want to have the top of his head shot off; friendly fire or not. He stopped Bobby, listening now. There had been more sounds ahead, more crunching in the brush than previously. He knew that some one was taking less care now to stay silent. He and Bobby stood, listening to their own breathing, as their breath condensed in vapour in front of them. There was little sound again, the movement seemed to have stopped. Russell took the safety off his rifle, ready for whatever lay ahead. He nodded tensely to Bobby and they moved forward, quickly now. They approached the base of the stones, and it was then that they heard a scrambling amongst the brush, and a voice.<p>

Bobby almost managed to call their names. But before he could, a creature, heavy and growling, flew from the brush and threw itself hard at Russell. They collided with a solid whump, and he yelped and crashed, flailing, against Bobby. Bobby was flattened, and Russell scrambled to his feet, whipping around and aiming his gun in the direction of his attacker. A man, bloodied, breathing hard and weaving on his feet, pointed a rifle back at him. They stood in a tense and heaving stand-off, each with a finger curving on a trigger. Russell was shaken, but his hand was steady. The other man was trembling violently and had a much less predictable grip on his weapon. Bobby shook away the fog from the impact, and he saw clearly now. With an unintelligible sound, he threw his stiff and bruised frame in front of Russell Adams with a frantic yell-

"Dean! Dean, no! It's me, it's Bobby!"

Sam bolted into the clearing, and stopped still, hardly understanding the scene in front of him. There stood Dean, wild-eyed, pointing a gun at two men. He didn't know the first, but the second was a shock. _Bobby._ He didn't wait for Dean to comprehend and lower the rifle. Sam hurled himself at his brother, and the two landed in a tangled, cursing heap to one side. Sam wrenched the gun from Dean's slick hands and pinned him. "Dean, it's Bobby, he's here! Do you hear me? It's not Buell!"

Dean shook his fevered head, and tried to make sense of it. "Sammy?"

Bobby now leaned over the young man lying winded in the leaves. Dean stared up in relief at the face he recognized now. He blinked hard, as black mist floated in from the periphery of his vision. "Bobby." he croaked. He didn't hear his friend's response. He felt a comfort envelope him, a knowledge that there was another there now to take charge, and he floated away from the woods, away from the cold and pain.

* * *

><p>Buell twisted around, where he stood on the ATV path. He had heard the commotion, far off, echoing amongst the trees. It wasn't his men, they were here with him. He swore angrily. He should have known not to take the damned road, only an idiot would have used such an obvious route to escape. They were on the wrong trail.<p>

* * *

><p>Sam had Russell's help to haul his brother up the rocks and into the sheltered place. Once there, Bobby introduced them all, and Sam offered a version of the truth to Russell that explained their predicament. Needless to say, he did not elaborate where Sin Eater was concerned.<p>

"So that's it, huh? Sonofabitch is running a grow-op!" Russell wasn't surprised; in fact, he was a little impressed. Buell had taken it a step further, but illegal consumables had been produced in this area for over a century. There wasn't a scrap of low grade silver ore left in those tunnels, but that bastard still managed to make that mine pay.

"Yeah, he was pretty concerned when he thought we were DEA. But once he had us, there was no turning back. Listen, this goes deeper than just trying to get rid of us; he alluded to the fact that a few others had 'disappeared'."

While he explained, he held Dean still as Bobby unwound the sodden bandage. The wound that greeted them was ugly. Bobby swore. "His fingers and arm are swelling...skin's on fire, for christ's sake. Why didn't you get to the damned hospital?"

"We were about to, Bobby, when Buell burst in. If he'd been just a few minutes later, we'd be in Bradford now." he said, miserably. There was more to that, but Sam didn't want to discuss it in front of Russell.

"It doesn't look like it wants to quit bleeding. I'll bandage it up tight again, but we should maybe tie off that arm." Russell passed him the kit, and fresh, tight gauze replaced the ruined material. He splinted it properly. A piece of surgical tubing functioned as a tourniquet, Bobby wrapped it above his elbow and cinched it. That brought Dean around.

"Jesus christ, Bobby! " he groaned.

"Be quiet. You're lucky I didn't bring a bucksaw."

"Yeah, I _feel _lucky." he growled. He asked Sam to help him sit up, and he now saw the stranger he'd held his gun to. "Who the hell are you?"

Bobby intervened. "Dean, this is Russell Adams. He's May Adam's boy. He came with me to find your sorry ass when you went AWOL. I couldn't have done it without him, so be civil."

"Oh...well...thanks, then." Dean mumbled. "God, I feel like shit. Anybody got any whiskey?"

Sam gave him one the of the water bottles, and Dean drained it gratefully. He turned to Russell. "Sorry about the door. Buell didn't knock. Is the old man alright?"

"Yeah, he's fine. I sent them out of harm's way. Listen, now. I know this place, but so does Buell. He needs to see you boys in the ground now, for sure, and if I learned anything about that SOB, he ain't gonna stop til he's done it. So the problem is where to go now, and how long til he catches up to us. Do you think you can travel on your own?" he said to Dean.

Dean's automatic response was a curt affirmative. Sam glanced at him with worry. Russell nodded, and he shone his light quickly over their space. The sheltered hole that Sam had seen earlier did, indeed, go deeper. Russell crept forward and looked into it's dark interior. He returned after a moment. "This is an old shaft. It's collapsed, mostly. I can see old timbers in there, and a lot of loose rock. I don't know if there ever was any other exit, other than this one, but the air in there ain't as stale as I thought it might be; there's a breeze going. Could be another opening."

"Well at least we're not exposed targets here. It's a little defensible." Dean mused. "We made enough freaking racket, Buell must have heard us by now." He paused and rubbed his eyes, swaying.

Bobby steadied him. "You fading on us?"

"A little." Dean admitted. He was running with sweat now, dizzy and trembling. His arm throbbed with a distractingly sharp and insistent pain after the ministrations, he cradled it and sighed. Bobby unwrapped a chocolate bar and gave him pieces of it, which helped immensely. He passed another to Sam.

"So here's our choices;" Russell said grimly. "Buell is coming this way for sure. You're right; ain't no way he didn't hear us all earlier. We've got a good head start, but he can move faster than us, and we have to keep quiet and dark or we'll be target practice. We can stay here and try to pick'em off as they approach, or we can go into that tunnel and try and find another way out that he don't know about at the moment."

There was silence for a moment. Sam spoke up. "We don't even know if that tunnel does lead anywhere; it could be a dead-end grave for all of us."

"Yeah, it could." Dean said. "But we can't hold them off forever by staying here behind these rocks. We'll run out of shells in no time, and then they'll just walk right up and blow our heads off. I don't see that we even have a choice."

"We could keep going overland-"

"Then they have the advantage of shooting at us from all directions. They'll catch up to us, and fan out. We wouldn't have a chance. At least if they try to hit us in the tunnel, we know where it's coming from." Dean turned to Russell. "You sure about that fresh air thing?"

"Pretty sure. Ain't no guarantees, but if that space was closed off, it's smell pretty sour in there from all the bat guano and raccoon shit. I went far enough to see that it looked like it kept going, and it stayed pretty fresh. Lotta rock-fall, but we can move it out of the way, mostly. And I agree, we'd just be putting off our death by a few hours by staying here."

Dean frowned in disgust. _Bats...great_. "Well I guess that's it then. Anybody have any better ideas...please?"

There was a general murmur of agreement. They would take the tunnel.

* * *

><p>They did so immediately. Russell led, and Sam stayed close to his brother, just in case. Dean had gotten to his feet with a shaky success, Sam wasn't sure how long he would stay mobile. But they managed a good long trek into the mine. This shaft was far different from the space that Frank Buell was using. Older, and smaller, this was more than likely just a small claim-holder's attempt at growing rich, abandoned like so many others' dreams in the 1800's, having sucked their hopes and finances dry. It had suffered in its years of abandonment. They had to climb over countless rock falls, sometimes even having to pull away the debris to continue forward. It was tiring, and dirty. Webs, choked with dust, hung like ruined lace from the ceiling, casting monstrous shadows as the flashlights passed over them. Russ Adams wasn't kidding regarding the shit that was piled on the dirt floor, it was everywhere. Dean was sure that the raccoons here must be bear-sized. And the bats were there, of course. <em>Freaking rats on wings-<em>They squeaked and flapped as they passed, sometimes exploding in flight; frightened, squealing knots of them seeking safety from the strangers in their midst. Dean soon stopped ducking and swearing at their passage, it was growing tiring.

They all stopped and listened frequently, but there was no evidence yet that Buell or his men had entered the tunnel. After several hours of slow progress, they stopped to refresh themselves and rest. Dean had been fuelled by adrenalin and chocolate for the past hours, and it was wearing thin. He was weaving on his feet, his gait had become staggering. As they stood in a circle, gulping water in weary silence, he leaned heavily against his brother. Sam turned, and both he and Bobby caught him as his knees buckled. They lowered him to the floor, propping him up agaist the tunnel wall. Dean apologized, but he was beyond the abilty to keep up. He was uncomfortably hot, and his limbs felt like rubber. Mere determination alone would not animate them now, he was just too weak. Bobby untied the tourniquet again, as he had done several times, to allow bloodflow to replenish his limb. Just as before, the red blossom grew on the gauze. Dean tried to wiggle feeling back into his swollen fingers, and regretted when he managed to. He could hardly move them at all now, and it hurt fiercely. He glanced up at his friend. "Think I'm screwed here-"

Bobby sat wearily beside him, handing him a stick of gum. "No, son... no you're not. But I think we're gonna have to do something about the bleeding. We can't keep tying that hand off, it ain't good for you."

Dean nodded. He closed his eyes, and uttered a quiet but deepfelt curse. He knew what Bobby meant. 'Do something' meant cauterize. And that meant flame, a blade, and a whole lot of hurt.

* * *

><p>Sam and Russell sat down with them, taking a breather. Bobby wanted to avoid the procedure almost as much as Dean did. He turned to their newest companion now. "So...what do you think, Russ? Any idea if we're near an exit?"<p>

Russell Adams took a swig of water and rubbed his hand through his hair. "Wish I could tell you. But I'd think the air would be alot more brisk if we were closer to an opening. Might be near, or might be a mile, but this air is pretty still right here." He took another drink and turned his worried attention to Dean. He was shaking, his fever taking a firm hold now. "You're pretty much done, now, ain't you?" he asked bluntly.

Dean appreciated his candour. He answered in kind. "Yeah. I'm dead weight from now on. I think the rest of you should keep going ahead, you can leave me behind. Just give me a rifle and a pile of shells, at least I can keep Buell from getting close."

Sam was beaten and tired himself, and his emotions boiled up at that. "Oh, thank-you Butch Cassidy! Christ, Dean, do you seriously think we'd leave you behind? This isn't the f~~king movies, ok? So save your _noble hero_ crap for some other cause, because even if we have to drag you by your short hairs, we're all gonna get out of this stinking hole!"

They were shocked by his outburst. Nobody knew what to say for a few moments. But it was Dean who began to laugh, softly at first. His humour built, until he shook with it, and tears streamed from his eyes as he continued laughing helplessly. It was infectious, and the others couldn't help but join him. Sam was last, he grinned, feeling sheepish.

Dean rethought his plan. "Ok, so no martyrdom allowed today, I got it. How about this, then? Sam, you and Russ take some time and scope out what's ahead. I can't right now, I've gotta take a break. Bobby; you stay here with me, I can see you're pretty wiped yourself. You guys go for a half hour, max; and that way we can get a clearer idea how close, or how screwed we are. And if Bobby and I hear anybody coming from back there, you'll still be able to hear the shots and come rescue our asses. Happy with that?"

Sam wasn't. "Forget it. I'm not leaving you sitting here with Buell maybe right behind us."

"I wasn't really asking your opinion, Sam; that was just courtesy. Russell will need the both of you to clear away any debris if it's necessary. And if it does get hairy here, Bobby can help me get moving. You agree, Russell?"

Russell did. It was decided, and they left the two with guns and ammunition, as well as an emergency blanket from the med kit. Dean was grateful for that, he was beginning to feel strange.

Sam was making him comfortable, preparing to leave with Russell. He tucked the crinkly blanket tighter over him, and placed more water within reach. "You sure you'll be ok for a bit?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah, don't worry. I've got Bobby here anyway, so quit fussing already, I'm fine." But he wasn't fine. He was burning up. His sense of reality was becoming tenuous. Like a balloon, it hovered close, held to his fingertips by static, but it stayed just ahead of him when he reached out to grasp it firmly. He wanted Sam to go away, he needed him to give him the space he would need. Pandora was playing with the lid on her box; he knew it, he'd felt it before; and the last person he wanted to view the contents was his brother. At least right now...

Sam nodded. "Don't worry, Dean. We'll find a way out."

Dean blinked hard, and wiped his brow. ..._so hot now_..."Good." he murmured. -_You'd better-I bought your life back with my future-I earned a year, it's only been weeks- _Bobby was talking to Russell further down the tunnel, Dean couldn't hear him. He stared hard at his brother, fevered. "Hey, Sam..?"

There were things that Dean Winchester could ignore. When he was healthy and strong, the lid on the box was iron-clad. It had to be, if he was to keep going through his particular brand of living. But when he was weakened, his defenses crumbled. Dean was a good student. He absorbed every lesson John Winchester sought to impart. How to fight...how to hunt..to be quick and cunning,... how to stay alive. And to protect those he loved. He also learned lessons that were more subtle; ideas that were deep and ingrained and hurtful, but equally powerful. They were the lessons that taught him his place, his own limited value in the scheme of things. He learned, through word, through action, that he was somehow _less_. Protect Sam. Value Sam, as Mary had...Save your brother, at all costs. Sacrifice your own life in the face of threat, discard it like a good coat, thrown over a puddle for the King to walk upon, lest his feet get wet...

He wanted to avoid asking the question that burned in his heart like a blinding flare, probably because he already knew the answer. But he couldn't keep from doing so.

Sam crouched nearer. "Yeah Dean?"

Dean sighed miserably. He didn't want to say the words, but they refused to be silenced. "Sam...do you think...I mean, if things were reversed...would you have done it, for me? If they gave you a choice...and you could bring me back, would you throw it away, if it meant ...?"

Sam was caught off guard. It was a hard thing, it was brutal. He struggled with the suddenness of the question, the intensity of it. It was exactly the thought he'd been wrestling with in private, and now it was here, laid out in the harsh, unyielding glare of open scrutiny. He stammered for a second. "_Jesus,_ Dean.. How can you even ask me that?"

Dean didn't want the truth, but somehow he just couldn't let it go. "You didn't answer me."

Sam blinked hard. He stared at the ground for a moment, then raised his eyes to meet Dean's. "Of course...yeah, in a second."

Dean nodded and looked away. His mouth was dry, his throat so tight it felt like it was going to choke him. Sam Winchester was alot of things, but he was a lousy, lousy liar. Watching him now, struggling to hide the reality, brought a suffocating hurt to Dean. It chipped away at his soul, like a rat gnawing doggedly on a frozen apple. He took a deep breath and smiled weakly.

"Sure. I know. Sorry Sammy, forget I even asked."

Sam returned a smile of guilty relief. "Now quit being so morose. Russ and I will only be gone for a little while. We'll find out where the fresh air is coming from, we'll get out of here, ok? I promise."

Dean nodded. Bobby rejoined them, and he eyed the two of them shrewdly. "Ok, go, Sam, -hurry. Me and Dean will be fine as long as we have the rifles ready. Come back as soon as you figure this out either way, got it?"

"Yeah, Bobby. We'll find it." He threw a last look at Dean, and followed Russell.

* * *

><p>When they were gone, Bobby turned to him. "Anything going on between you boys that I should know about?" he demanded.<p>

Dean cleared his throat. "No. Nothing important."

Bobby put his hand to Dean's face, frowning. "Christ, boy; you're just about ready to burst into flames. You want some more water?"

Dean nodded, accepting the bottle. He took several deep draughts, and dropped his hand by his side with a sigh. "Bobby, I know how this is gonna go. I've been sick before, more than once, it's always the same. Once I start running really hot, I'm gonna start babbling, and I won't shut up; trust me. And there's things...there's stuff I don't want Sam to hear."

Bobby understood. He watched his friend with sadness. "Don't worry, son. I'll keep a lid on it. If anybody's gonna blackmail you, it'll be me."

Dean smiled, resting his head back against the rock wall. "Thanks...I think." He sighed again, and looked down, frowning, at his arm. "Well, guess we'd better do this."

Bobby propped his light amongst the rocks, illuminating the two of them. He didn't dare make even a small fire, the smoke would be a beacon to Buell, and it would foul the air in the tunnel. But he did have a good lighter. He prepared Dean by unwrapping the wound and mopping it dry. He rummaged in his things, finding his most trusted silver knife, and he showed it to Dean for approval. Dean nodded.

"I'm gonna lay across you, and hold your hand tight, alright?"

"Yeah. Just hurry up." They both knew he would yell, and that quiet was paramount. Bobby tied a length of cotton cloth over Dean's mouth. He held the blade over the flame, until it radiated heat, and the handle was beginning to smoke. He knew at that point it was hot enough to sear. He squeezed Dean's shoulder in sympathy, and pinned him.

* * *

><p>Dean nearly bucked him off with the violence of his reaction. Bobby had slipped the heated blade as deeply into the wound as he could, and he pressed the sides against the knife for several seconds. It took all his strength to keep his friend held down as he did so, and it was damned lucky they'd gagged him, or his howl would have echoed out into the still of the forest. When the blade had cooled enough to no longer be effective he carefully removed it. He glanced back at Dean. His face was frozen in a taught grimace, his good hand clamped over his eyes. Bobby witnessed his chest heave in hitched breaths for a few moments, until he began to calm again. Dean turned away to hide his tears from his mentor.<p>

Bobby spoke to him gently, reassuring him as he rewrapped the arm and removed the gag. "All done, Dean...it worked fine. You did real good."

Dean kept his eyes shut, but he flipped him the bird. Bobby smiled to himself. -_Atta boy_-

* * *

><p><em>Note from Mal<em>

_Hey there. This'll sound weird, but he read count graph has drastically dropped off from capter 8 to 9. As it has a differential of about 450 reads, I'm inclined to think that there is some issue with the site counting programming. I've had a lot of trouble even accessing the site lately. If it isn't that, then I guess that leaves two scenarios; either interest suddenly waned and very few people are reading this story now, or it isn't reaching readers for some reason. I can't do much about it, but it it leaves me scratching my head either way. I don't really want to talk to admin about it, I'll come off as a whiney prima donna, lol. Suffice to say, hope you all are still reading and enjoying. yadayadayada._


	11. Chapter 11

11

The bleeding had stopped; that was a blessing. But Dean's temp continued to rise. He had slept, for wont of a better description, for a little while after his ordeal. But he awoke, thirsty and hot. Bobby fed him sips of water, and tried to distract him from his pain.

"So why were you and Sam here anyway?" he asked. "What kept you in this crossroads instead of going on to Bradford?"

Dean shook his head, struggling with the confusion of fever. "A case. I was going nuts and I just needed something else to think about. Sam wanted to sleep, but I wanted to check this thing out."

"What thing?"

Dean concentrated. It was an effort; he didn't feel strongly connected to the plane that Bobby inhabited at the moment. "Accidents...something weird going on. They were talking about it at the store, and I went out to the place where shit was going down, and I..." He stopped and closed his eyes.

"Go on, Dean."

Dean ran a shaky hand through his hair, remembering. "His name's Nate. Nathaniel Willard. Or Willard-Buell, I guess...He lived at the clearing. They farmed it, but the dad was a bastard... Nate had to bury his mom, after his dad beat her to death. He ate her sins, with apples."

Bobby didn't know what he was talking about. "Ate her sins? What does that mean? And when-?"

"I don't know...maybe around 1900, 1920 or something. They got some sorry bastard to eat the sins of the dead around here then, when they died, to save their soul. Ask Sammy..." He was fading, but Bobby felt the need to keep him conscious.

"And your Nate?"

"He was just a kid...he was twelve or something. His old man beat them both and left. The kid had to bury her, but he was hurt, and he couldn't do it right. He ate her sins because he couldn't get her into town, the dad took the horses..."

"Then what?"

"Nate survived the winter alone. He walked into town in the spring, but there was no work, so he ate other people's sins for money. Sonsofbitches that didn't deserve it- He died after he refused to do it for his old man, and they buried him on the farm...and he's still here."

"Here? Where, Dean?"

Dean was growing fretful. His emotions were now so close to the surface; exactly as he'd warned and feared. "Bobby, he did it for his mother. He's afraid to go on, he's hanging around here. He's lonely, he deserves better-"

"It's ok, son."

"No, it isn't. He deserves to see his mom again, but he's afraid to go. He thinks that because he's been the Sin Eater, that he'll go to Hell. He's wrong, Bobby! _Christ_-all he did was sacrifice, and now he's afraid to accept his reward, because he doesn't believe he's worthy."

Bobby put an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close, wanting to be a comfort. Dean's words grew too quiet to understand, and finally he simply wept quietly against his shoulder. The elder man didn't know what to say now. He was getting a bit of the picture regarding Nathaniel Willard. And a little more regarding Dean Winchester.

Dean returned to the telling. "He helped me, when I was pinned by the backhoe... I have to fix this for him." he choked. "He lived such a crappy life, and now he's afraid to go where he can finally be happy! It's not fair, Bobby! _Jesus_, it's not right-"

Bobby held him tighter. He knew what this was really about. "I know, Dean. We will. We will."

* * *

><p>When Sam and Russell returned, Dean was asleep, and Bobby was sitting, watching the darkness that yawned behind them with a weary intensity. He turned around and greeted them hopefully. "You find any thing?" he asked.<p>

Sam answered. "Yeah, Bobby, we found the exit. It's not all that far, but it's pretty blocked." He sat down beside his brother, glancing over him. "How is he..?"

Bobby turned his tired eyes to the sleeping Dean. "We had to do something about that bleeding. He's out now, after that. But good news is that we managed to stop it. He's running a fever, though. Don't know how he'll be when he wakes."

Sam sat beside his brother. He ran his hand through Dean's sweaty hair, feeling the heat. Dean stirred a little at the contact; he mumbled something, frowning. Sam spoke to him quietly, nothing of importance, just simple calming sentiment. Dean seemed to respond to it; he settled, and relaxed again.

Russell watched the group in front of him. He liked them, all of them. If it was in the cards, he'd do whatever he could to make sure they all got out safely. He addressed Bobby. "Sam and me, we found where the fresh air was coming in. It's timber framed pretty high and wide, so I think its an exit point, instead of just an air hole. But it's been blocked by rockfalls, probably for ages now. None of them stones are too big for us to haul out of the way, but there's a ton of 'em. Gonna take a while."

"Well, that sure as hell is some good news." Bobby said. "And so far, we haven't heard a peep from back there. Either this Buell is real quiet, or he ain't in this tunnel yet. What do we need to do then? Dean here is out of commission for a while. But I can dig as well as anybody. As long as Buell isn't on our necks, we can all pitch in to clear the doorway. Don't know why he's a no-show, but I ain't complaining. I'm not sure what to make of it, except that it works at the moment."

Russell thought for a moment. "He didn't know that we were in this tunnel, so maybe we got lucky. If we can clear that opening, we can move away from here, find the road. My cell's useless out here, but I've got a radio in my truck, and we can alert the authorities then. I ain't exactly sure where this mine ends up, but if I have a few minutes, I can figure it out pretty quick once we're out."

"Good." Bobby sighed.

* * *

><p>Sam and Russell hauled Dean along, as Bobby illuminated the way. They traveled for forty minutes that way, hampered by his weight, and the fallen timber and stone. Dean drifted in and out of awareness. They put him down gently when they hit the blockage.<p>

The two had scrambled over the rock debris earlier. As they'd described, the stones were all of a size that could be lifted, but there were a lot of them. They took some time to pull at them, each man hauled and sweated, rolling and pushing the heavy rock fragments out of the way, until a wider opening was created. Once clear, they found easier passage beyond it. They stopped to rest on the other side. They were very close to pushing through fully; only one more pile of stone stood between them and the fresh forest air. Russell had already squeezed out before, but they needed only to widen the opening enough to accommodate the rest of them.

* * *

><p>Dean opened his eyes. He was covered in a sheen of sweat, it glistened by the light of the flashlights. "Sam?" he asked, confused.<p>

"Right here, Dean." Sam held water to his lips.

"I don't feel right-" he protested weakly.

"You're running a fever, Dean. Drink some water. It'll be ok, we're getting out of here."

"Oh." He worked at clearing his mind, and sat up. "How'd I get here?"

"We all carried you."

Dean frowned. He didn't like the image that brought. "Well I can walk-"

Sam smiled. "Relax. Save your strength; you might have to run, let alone walk, later."

Dean rubbed his face and forced himself to stay alert. "No sign of Buell yet?"

"No. Nothing...I think we got lucky."

"Lucky...yeah." Even in his fevered state, Dean didn't trust that. In his experience, luck was usually of a negative variety. "That's kinda _too _lucky, don't you think?"

Russell looked at him. "Maybe. I know that bastard is single-minded and vicious, but christ, he's not psychic. He never saw us go in; why should he even figure we came through here? It's pretty damned obvious that nobody's been through here in years; it ain't like it's some well known short-cut. And I already went out and scouted around; nobody shot my crown off. I think we're ok to head on down. Buell farm is just below, and the highway is just down from that...so unless the Sin Eater boogeyman decides to show up, I'd say we're home free."

But Dean remained wary, and unconvinced. "No...no, this is too easy-"

Sam answered now. "_Easy_? You're kidding, right? Do have any clue how much freaking rock the three of us have moved? Tons, Dean! There was nothing easy about any of it!"

"No!" Dean insisted. He was an experienced judge of character; he knew men like Frank Buell. They didn't give up so easily. He struggled to get up, to be seen as an equal rather than a burden. "Listen to me, alright? Buell knows this land cold, you said so yourself, Russ. He's up to something; he didn't follow us in the tunnel for a reason. We can't assume that they're just off chasing the wrong trail!"

Russell was frustrated, freedom seemed so close now. "Why? They never knew we were in here in the first place! And anyway, what the hell does it matter? There's no benefit to staying in here now, we can see the route out from the exit! The farm clearing is just a half mile below, and the highway ain't far past that. We ain't heard or seen Buell or his men for hours!"

Bobby and Sam agreed. But Dean was still discomfited. "You're sure they aren't hanging around just waiting to play whack-a-mole as soon as we each stick our head outside the tunnel? I mean, doesn't it seem too good to be true that they didn't follow us in? Christ, we made enough noise; how the hell could they have missed that?"

Russell knew he had a point. But it was irrelevant now, they'd already made their choice and they had to move forward. "Well what do you suggest then?"

Dean had no options to offer. All he had were misgivings and what seemed to be irrational fear. "I ...I don't know. Maybe we should wait here, where it's safe, until he makes some sort of move. I just have a bad feeling about this... Maybe I'm just paranoid, I don't know." He wished he felt sharper. The pain in his arm was making him feel ill; it took all his concentration just to keep from puking, and his fever was fogging his thinking.

Russell could see he was having difficulty. "Listen; I hear what your saying, and it makes sense. But we'll lose any advantage we have if we let him move first; it'd be just the same as if we'd stayed behind and never taken this tunnel. Right now we have our only chance. And I've been out there already, scoping things out. Trust me, I know the woods. If I can't see or hear any sign of them, then he ain't out there."

Dean nodded. He was weak and sick, and this was Russell Adams' territory. He had to let him lead.

* * *

><p>It took only a short time to widen the entrance. But they were silent now; they carefully pulled away each stone and placed it gently onto the tunnel floor, to minimize any noise. They felt a collective tension, with safety within their grasp, and Buell remaining hidden. Russell went first again. He crept away from the tunnel opening, and made his way silently through the brush. The silvery light of the coming dawn illuminated his way now, and the air was already considerably warmer than underground. He was glad of that, especially for Dean Winchester's sake. He retraced his earlier path, and crouched on a rocky promontory, viewing the countryside that fell away below him. Nothing moved below. He carefully scanned the perimeter of the farm clearing, but he saw nothing to cause any alarm. Satisfied, he crept back to the others.<p>

"Seems clear. How is he? Can he travel on his own? It's pretty steep from here down."

Dean raised his head and answered for himself. "I can move on my own."

Russell eyed him for a moment. -_tough SOB- _"You sure? Cuz I don't want to give up our location by you falling down a hill and yelling curses to high heaven all the way." He was half smiling as he said it, but he was serious nonetheless.

Dean swallowed hard and blinked the sweat from his eyes. "I'm not your worry, Buell is."

"Ok then. Let's go, and everybody keep it zipped from now on. And take the safeties off, just in case."

* * *

><p>He led them down the rocky hillside, following nearly invisible deer trails. They moved with careful stealth. The light grew, it was hinting at a brilliant day, and the warmth was increasing as the sun rose higher. Several times Russell stopped, holding his hand up, at an errant snap of a twig, or some unidentifiable noise. They stood, holding their breath as he listened and watched. Each time he relaxed, and they moved on. Dean stayed true to his insistence that he could travel, but he relied heavily on Sam's support. As long as Sam could keep him upright, he would spend his weakened energy placing his feet carefully, so he wouldn't stumble or make noise. Only once did he falter, slipping to his knees. Sam held him as he retched, overcome by his illness, and the deep and pervasive ache that stretched from his fingers to his neck. They gave him water, and after a brief rest, he got up with a grim determination and staggered on along with the others. Bobby insisted that he take over now. Sam needed a respite from Dean's weight, and Bobby needed to feel that he was somehow helping his friend. With the warmth and the disturbance, mosquitoes formed a persistent cloud around them as they passed through the undergrowth. They hardly dared to swat at them now; they were the lesser of the threats facing them. They were drawn to Dean in particular, with the aura of elevated heat radiating from his skin. Bobby tried his best to wipe them away when they landed. Dean hardly noticed them.<p>

* * *

><p>After what was surely an eternity, the ground levelled off. They had successfully managed the descent, and the tall grass of the abandoned Buell holding stretched out before them. Russell cautioned them to stay in the periphery while he crept forward, making sure the way was clear. He skulked through the grass, listening, scanning, gun at the ready. But the place was quiet and peaceful. Birds sang intermittently, and a soft breeze combed the grass in silky, meandering waves. He hadn't been here in years; he would deny that he had any superstitions, but still, he avoided it just as everyone else did. But he knew what was supposed to be here, and the dark shape out by the apple trees was definitely new. It was a car, parked in the grass. An old model, black, gleaming in the morning sun. He remembered his mother had said that the boys' car was gone. He crept back to where the others waited tensely.<p>

"Nobody's there, as far as I can see. You boys drive a dark, older model sedan?"

Dean snapped up at that. "Yeah, I do! Sixty-seven Impala, black-" He stared with a fevered intensity at Russell.

"Yeah, looks like that's what's parked down there."

"Is it...I mean, did it look ok? No numbers painted on it? Or orange paint?"

Russell looked at him oddly. "Well I didn't go right on down and check the oil, but there weren't no numbers or anything. And like I said; dark, not orange."

Dean closed his eyes with a passionate sigh of relief. -_Baby was safe_.

Sam had to smile, as he witnessed his brother's reaction. Thank god for little victories. "I have the spare keys on me, Dean." he offered. Dean's grateful smile was genuine.

Bobby returned them all to the issue at hand. "So? Should we go down there?"

"Yeah." Russell smiled. "Let's get the hell home. I still have my after-work beer waiting for me, and damned if I ain't earned it!"

* * *

><p>"You all ready?" Russell demanded, turning specifically to Dean. He nodded, and Russell held the spare rifle out to him. Dean shook his head. As much as he would have preferred to be armed now, he was aware enough of his limits to know that he couldn't manage its weight anymore; it was all he could do to simply keep up with them. Sam took it instead. Bobby kept his own pistol close in his coat, but he had his hands full supporting Dean. They stepped out of the safety of the trees and walked warily through the tall grass. Russell led the way.<p>

He was headed for the road at the end of the property, and they seemed poised for success. But when he turned around to make sure they were following, he saw that he'd already lost most of his entourage. Bobby was right behind him, but Dean had veered in the other direction, and was stalking purposefully through the grass toward the Impala. Sam was hissing at him to get back, but in his fevered state, Dean would have none of it. After what Frank had mockingly described as the fate of the car, Dean was not about to let her slip through his fingers again.

Sam turned to the others, his hands out in a gesture of helplessness. Russell didn't see the humour; he swore and waved for him to steer Dean back. They may have left the forest, but they weren't out of the woods yet.

* * *

><p>The pain of his arm momentarily forgotten, Dean loped the remaining distance. He was now a dozen yards ahead of the others. He approached his car, filled with an indescribable relief at finding her intact. He wasn't thinking clearly, and all he wanted, more than anything at that moment, was to feel the comfort of laying his hands on that sun-warmed hood. But he stopped cold several feet short of her, squinting. His heartrate leapt and he took a nervous step back, watching for a repeat of what he'd seen. The white flash briefly reflected in the shining black paint... It could have been anything, his imagination- He turned and glanced back, and Sam caught his expression. He stopped too. Dean turned back to the car and focused hard through the interior at the passenger side mirror. From his position, the view wasn't fully clear. But the image he saw wasn't the golden grass that surrounded the car, it was something else. He couldn't make it out, and seconds ticked by...until a shape caught his eye. <em>Something-<em> The mystery reflected there turned, and instantly he recognized it. A reversed Penn State logo; Buell's dirty white baseball cap. At that moment, Frank looked up and locked eyes with Dean.

"It's Buell!" Dean shouted frantically. He dove sideways into the grass in desperation as Buell and his two men leapt from around the car, where they'd crouched for hours in waiting. Frank Buell put his rifle to his shoulder with the rapid speed and empty conscience of a veteran sniper, and fired at the first target he saw. Russell Adams stood in the centre of the grass, caught off guard by the sudden crisis. He grunted and staggered back in shock as the bullet struck him. Bobby and Sam had thrown themselves into the grass and were scrambling to pull their own weapons free now. Sam rolled and rose above the cover, and fired back at the figures, who were spread out now and running toward them. Never a crack shot, he missed Buell, but it caused one of them to drop into the safety of the grass and take cover. Bobby ducked as bullets whistled through the stalks. As he dove back down, he witnessed with horror as Russell fell forward and disappeared from view.

They played bullet tag for several more minutes, but the hay in which they hid made it nearly impossible to get a bead on any one man. Finally Frank Buell had enough. He snarled an impatient curse, and shouted at his men to cover him as he leapt back through the grass, following the flattened trail of crushed stalks until he found what he was looking for. Dean Winchester lay, un-armed and pressed as close to earth as he could, furious and helpless while the world spun around him with a sickening speed. He'd hit the ground hard when he saw the trap, and crawled as far as he could, until he couldn't do it anymore. He panted against the cool earth, holding his injured arm tightly to his side with his other. When he turned, the blurred image of Buell filled his view. He choked out a curse and raised his foot against him, but Buell kicked it away and hauled him up to his feet by a handful of hair. Buell had what he needed now. He threw an arm around Dean's throat, near-strangling him, and yanked his injured arm high up behind his back. Dean nearly passed out at the pain, but Buell dragged him along, shouting out to the others.

"Show yourselves, you f~~king bastards!" he screamed. He was wild-eyed and spitting with fury. "Do it now, or I swear to god, I'll blow his head off right here!" He twisted the wounded arm tighter, forcing his captive to drop to his knees with a strangled cry.

"Don't do it!" Dean managed to yell, before Buell hit him and tightened his grip at his throat. He struggled briefly, but was spent.

Bobby stood slowly, raising his hands, his gun held high. Sam did likewise, his rifle held between his outstretched hands. "Don't, please, don't!" he begged. Buell ignored him. "Where's the other one?" he demanded of Bobby.

"Dead! You blew half his head off, you miserable sonofabitch!" Bobby spat.

"Good!" Buell turned to Martin Colter. "Get them tied!"

Colter grimly pulled a handful of nylon cable ties from his coat and fixed their hands tightly behind them. Buell shoved his hostage to the ground, and Dean gasped as his hands too were wrenched behind and tie-wrapped. The third man, the weasel, stumbled up and joined them now, face bloodied, winged by Sam's lucky shot. He stomped toward the younger Winchester and delivered a vicious kick. "That's for the kiss you gimme, you blind bugger!" he snarled. Sam saw stars, and went silent.

Desperate to avoid any more bloodshed, Bobby tried words of diplomacy, but before he could make his plea, he was silenced by Buell; and left winded and gagging in the grass. Buell was consumed by fury. He paced back and forth in the grass, growling to himself. He was used to unquestioning obeisance from those around him. No one ever defied Frank Buell. But now, his illicit empire had been severely threatened by these outsiders, and it enraged him to an irrational level. Martin Colter had seen him like this before, and he wisely stayed silent in the background. But the weasel was of the same ilk as Buell, and was perfectly happy to fuel the fire; he enjoyed the entertainment value of Frank's capacity for cruelty.

"Frank; there's kerosene in that car trunk-" He knew he didn't have to explain further.

"Get it." Buell took hold of Bobby's arm and dragged him through the grass as the older man fought off his vertigo. He continued to drag his struggling burden, up and onto the splintered pile of weathered, grey wood that was once the tack shed. Bobby tried to roll off, but Frank tied him to a fallen beam. The weasel returned with a tin half filled with accelerant, and he and Buell dragged Sam's heavy and limp carcass onto the woodpile next.

"Go get that other bastard!" he barked to Colter.

* * *

><p>But Martin Colter stood still, in shocked horror. He couldn't believe what Buell was about to do. "Frank, come on now! This ain't right-" he faltered.<p>

Frank turned and snarled, "I said get him!"

"No, listen to me! I know you're pissed, and these jackasses are the reason, but just put a quick bullet in 'em and be done with it!"

Buell turned and stepped toward his underling now, seething with menace. "Get-Him-Now!" he ground out.

Colter swallowed hard and tried one last time. "No, please, Frank! This is sick, it ain't right-"

Frank Buell drew his pistol from his coat and shot the reluctant dissident point blank. Martin Colter's brief moment of character cost him dearly; he was dead before he fell into the grass. Buell stalked away and scowled at the remaining weasel. "You got anything to say?"

The man smirked. "No Sirree."

"Then help me throw that last piece of shit onto the pile."

* * *

><p>They dragged Dean through the grass and tied him to the pyre with the others. While that ugly little vignette was playing out, Dean had been whispering hard, calling the name of Nathaniel Willard-Buell. "It's your daddy all over again," he murmured, "Nate, please-he's a Buell, just like your old man! His same rotten, murdering blood runs in those veins. Be beat you once and won, but you can stop it this time!"<p>

"Shut up!" Buell barked. "Prayin' ain't gonna help you now!" He picked up the kerosene can and dumped its contents over the dry tinder and his captives. He pulled a lighter from his pocket, struggling to get it to light.

"Don't do this, please!" Bobby begged. "Please, for the love of god!"

Buell ignored him, shaking and cursing his lighter. He flung it away in fury, and the weasel rummaged around and tossed him another. Sam was silent, still mercifully unaware of what was about to befall him. Dean didn't make any plea. He knew it was useless. He cursed Buell with a vengeance, a litany of condemnation of his lineage, his character, his actions, hell, even his mother. He ended it by howling Nathaniel's name one last time. Buell was so focused on what he wanted to do that he let the diatribe go unanswered. He had success with the second lighter. He tested it, and the weasel sniggered as he bent to touch it to the woodpile.

* * *

><p>-<em>sinner-<em>

Buell whipped around. "What?"

"I didn't say nuthin."

The air temperature suddenly, frighteningly plummeted.

-_Sinner-_

Buell scowled at his toady. "Quit that whispering!"

"I said I didn't say nuthin, Frank! It ain't me!" The weasel had heard it too, and he breathed out a cloud of vapour in the icy air, glancing back at his boss with confusion. "Christ it's cold all of a sudden-"

The third time, it was louder, and perfectly clear. Both men stood staring nervously at each other. Buell shook it off, and turned back to the task at hand, until something struck a sodden blow to the back of his head. "What the f-k!" he muttered. He bent down and picked it up. An apple... He flung it away, demanding; "Did you throw that at me, you ratty little sonofabitch?"

The weasel shook his head. He was wall-eyed with terror. "No! No, Frank! I didn't, I swear! _He_ did!" He pointed a shaking hand past Buell.

The trio on the woodpile, moments away from the agonizing hell of immolation, watched in breathless anxiety as a mist formed and took shape. Nathaniel Willard Buell slowly materialized in front of them, in all his final glory, shocking his uncomprehending relation. Buell and his lackey stood staring, open-mouthed at the hideous vision. The long, matted hair, the translucent white skin, and shrunken, emaciated form. And the blood, the terrible view of his exposed innards-

Sin Eater raised his hand and pointed now. He screamed the word this time, loud and filled with rage. "_SINNER! "_ It reverberated around the clearing, echoing off the trees.

Buell froze at first. But he staggered back as apples began to strike him. They came from everywhere, and he ducked and covered his head. More and more flew at him, bursting into sodden bits against his body. He screamed and howled in terror, crumpling under the onslaught.

Nathaniel did not relent. As Buell crawled through the grass, desperate to get away, the angry wraith sent the apples ever harder against his opponent. The air hissed with the word that he breathed over and over. -_sinner-sinner- _One wormy, yellow fruit struck Buell in the mouth, and he gagged as it shattered in a pulpy sweet mash and lodged in his windpipe. Before he could eject it, another followed, and he clawed at his face and neck, trying to expel the choking pieces. Nathaniel forced more and more into his mouth, until a froth of apple fragments and saliva bubbled over Buell's chin and out of his nose, and he began to turn purple. The weasel stumbled backwards, whimpering in disbelief at the scene. Buell kicked and rolled, clawing desperately at his throat, suffocating, but still the Sin Eater forced more fruit into his gasping mouth, until he stopped thrashing, and the kicking legs went limp. Buell shuddered, and lay still in the grass, his face ashen, his dead eyes bulging in abject terror.

Finally Nathaniel stopped. His misty form stood over Frank Buell, and he stopped the whispered mantra.. He spoke now, instead. "Eat your own god-damned sins!"

He looked up and met Dean Winchester's eyes. His face was a mask of rage and hate, and tears streaked his translucent, white cheeks. But his eyes were those of young Nathaniel. Haunted and confused, angry and pained. _Lost._ His fury spent, Sin Eater disappeared into a mist, and was gone.


	12. Chapter 12

12

Bobby summed it up for all of them. "Holy mother of-"

Sam remembered to breathe, and he shook away his shock at the horrible imagery, and began to struggle hard against the rope that tied him to what was nearly their funeral pyre. The stench of kerosene fumes rose sharply around them, and it reminded them of their immediate peril. Bobby did likewise, but he stopped, turning his attention to Dean, who had said nothing in the aftermath. "You alright, boy?"

Sweat-soaked, from both fear and illness, Dean had shut his eyes and was trying to breathe away the dizzying spin of his vision. It wasn't working. He raised his head slightly but even that was too taxing.

"yeah...no."

He couldn't stave off the encroaching blackness . Thanks to Buell, Bobby's procedure with the blade was undone; his arm was running with blood, his shoulder an agony after being hauled through the grass and dragged onto the woodpile. He turned to look at Sam, shuddering, and moaned softly as he slipped in to stillness. It sent Sam into a frenzy. He roared in frustration as he pulled and strained and twisted with all of his considerable strength. The rope held, but the punky old grey tangle of wood finally gave way. The second he felt it snap, he hauled himself up and shook off the splintered pieces of lumber. The ropes were loose now, he pulled free and reached awkwardly with his tie-wrapped hands for the knife still hidden in his sock. He flipped it open, and turned it up, sawing desperately at the tough nylon binding his wrists behind him until the cable-tie was severed. He dropped beside his brother.

"Dean!...aw shit, c'mon, stay with me!" he begged. By now beyond responding, Dean lay quiet, and Sam tore at the ropes and cut the tie that held his hands. He groaned as Sam carefully extricated him from the woodpile and dragged him gently into the grass.

"Still one more, here!" Bobby reminded. Sam did the same for him, and the the two of them sat for a moment, still shaking with their experience, and rubbing sensation back into their prickling hands. "What about you, Sam? That's a helluva gash there."

Sam shrugged and gingerly touched his fingers to the place on his brow where he'd been kicked. "It hurts, but what else doesn't. Vicious little bastard!" He scanned around warily. "Did you see where he went?"

The third man was nowhere to be seen. Bobby shook his head. "I lost track of him while your Sin Eater was putting on his show." He got up and crouched over Dean, who was still out. He laid a hand on his head. "He's real hot now. Jesus, and look what they did here!" he growled, checking Dean's wound. "Sam, we've gotta get him out of here pronto. It's a three hour drive to Bradford; we can't waste any time."

Sam nodded. But he remembered their new found friend, and what had befallen him. "What about Russell...?"

Bobby pulled off his cap, running his hand through his thin, sweaty hair. He sighed miserably. "From what I saw, there ain't much we can do for him now. I don't want to leave him behind here; that don't feel right, but this is a crime scene. Best we don't interfere with it, especially if it has any bearing on some kind of justice."

But their attention was diverted by the deep, familiar rumble. The Impala door creaked and slammed shut, and the engine roared to life, and speak-of-the-devil, behind the wheel crouched the last of Buell's lackeys, wild-eyed with his need to flee from all he'd caused and witnessed. He floored it, threw the car in reverse and spun clods of grass and clay in an arc behind the wheels in his haste to escape. That sound had more power over Dean than any words. He snapped out of it and shot bolt upright in confusion. Following the sound, he stared, choking back a howl as he watched his car being torn from his grasp once more. He scrambled up, but stumbled to his knees. Sam pulled him back, growling in fury, and he leapt into the grass in pursuit. The weasel was driving in panic, without any consideration for the rough terrain. He kept the gas floored, but was surprised by the power under the hood. He fish-tailed and spun the car around, trying to aim it in the direction of the newly graded road. But the erratic driving allowed Sam his advantage, and he caught up with him. He clutched at the door handle, forcing the driver to brake hard, and the weasel reversed again, without plan or thought. The car shot backwards, and was halted with a whip-lash inducing collision against one of the apple tree trunks. Tail lights and wood splintered into shards, and the man flung the door open, scrambled out and stumbled away. Sam overtook him and tripped him into the long grass. He grabbed him by the shirt front and thumped him solidly, until he was on his knees, bloodied and crying for him to stop. Finally Sam did. He delivered a final kick as the bastard whimpered. "That's for my brother, you sonofabitch!" His anger somewhat spent, he turned away in disgust, and began to walk toward the others. But the defeated man wasn't quite finished. He found a shred of pride still intact, and swearing an unintelligible diatribe, he pulled a handgun from his coat. He stood up, a grimace of angry hate twisting his battered face, and aimed it squarely at Sam's spine..

Bobby roared a warning, but he didn't have to. Once again, an eery scene unfolded. A bloody wraith rose from the grass. But this time it leveled a rifle with a sure and steady eye, and pulled the trigger. With the sharp report of the shot, the target shrieked and flew backwards at the impact, landing sprawled, as good as dead in the grass. The weasel twitched and gurgled briefly as Sam spun around in shock. The sight caused his jaw to drop. A figure stood, some fifty feet away, the face obscured by a veil of blood. It dropped the gun into the grass and staggered toward them. It was Russell Adams..

* * *

><p>It was Bobby who leapt ahead now. He made his way to the injured man, and Sam joined him. They guided him back to where Dean lay, and sat him down. Bobby examined him for injury. "How many lives have you got, you lucky bastard?" he asked, relieved, and incredulous. "You ok?"<p>

Russell nodded wryly. "Yeah. Got my bell rung pretty good. And re-arranged my hairline some."

Bobby mopped at the blood that had washed down from the bullet crease. "Christ, boy; I was sure you were dead."

"Yeah, for a minute or two, I thought so too. Caught me on my heels, but Buell ain't the sharpshooter he thinks he is, I guess. Or _was_... You really told him they'd shot off the top of my skull?"

"Well it sure as hell looked that way to me! Besides, I was a bit preoccupied with this lot!" He gestured toward his bloodied 'nephews' .

Russell turned to Sam. "Looks like you caught some yourself. How's your brother?" He peered at Dean, who was lying in the grass.

"The _brother _will live, thanks to you" Dean mumbled.

"Me? You're joshin' for sure. I saw that...that thing, come right outa thin air. It killed Buell, _that_ I know. But I sure as hell don't know what I was lookin' at. I can hardly believe my old grandad was right...that there really was a sin-eater ghost after all!"

Sam and Bobby stayed quiet, unsure about what to reveal. Dean spoke. "What you saw was Nathaniel Willard Buell, and yeah, it was his spirit. It's a long story, Russ. But he saved our asses, that's a fact. We'd all be barbeque by now if he hadn't done what he had. Sam can fill you in later...but he was the reason we were out here in the first place. I..." He faltered, weakening.

Bobby took charge. "We have to get to the city. Russell, I'm gonna drive the Impala. How are you for driving? I can take you along."

Russell shook his head. "Thanks, but I'll be ok. I'll take my truck; I need to get on the radio. And I know the way to the hospital, so you can follow me. You think that old wreck is drivable?"

Bobby glanced at the Impala, still snugged up hard against the apple trunk. "I sure hope so."

* * *

><p>Bobby was relieved when she roared to life. "Just a scratch, Dean; nothing we can't handle." It was a bit more than that, but it didn't matter. She was still road-worthy.<p>

Dean didn't answer. Sam and Bobby had managed to carry the elder Winchester to the car. Russell Adams had walked the further distance to his truck. He had called the appropriate authorities, and they were dispatched and on their way. Bobby was in the best shape to drive. Sam sat beside him in front, and they'd put Dean in back. He was still running hot, and was frighteningly quiet. They negotiated the newly forged road away from the farm site, and stopped at the side of the highway, where Russ waited. Russell directed them to follow, he was going to floor it to Bradford with his emergency volunteer firefighter light flashing. The conversation woke Dean from his fevered slumber.

"No, wait, Bobby where are we going?"

"Bradford Hospital, Dean. Russell's leading the convoy."

Dean frowned. Something disquieted him, he shook his head in refusal. 'What? We're leaving? We can't, not yet-"

Sam tried to calm him. "We're going to get fixed up there, Dean. It's ok, We're all here."

Dean struggled to sit up. "We're not done!"

"Done? What do you mean? Buell's dead, Dean, and so are his men. This is over, and you need a doctor, or-"

"No!" he insisted. "Sammy, I don't care, ok? This-" he gestured at his arm, "this'll heal, it always does." He stopped speaking for several moments, fighting the waves of emotion that were swamping him. "You know, he's not that hideous thing that you all saw. He's not some dangerous, tortured spirit, not like we've seen before. He chooses to stay here, but he's staying behind for the wrong reason. It was never about revenge, or retribution, nothing like that. It's fear. He thinks he's denied heaven, whatever that is. He thinks that because he absorbed all those sins, even if it isn't really true, that he's going to hell. But I know how to help him, ok? Only me, I know how-"

"Dean, this stop was a disaster from the beginning. As soon as we get you able to travel, we're heading as far away from this outhouse as we can. As far as I saw, and Bobby too; Nathaniel had his revenge for what happened in his life. You don't need to do any more."

Dean threw his good hand over his eyes. He shuddered, trying to keep from showing his pain, physical and otherwise. "Yes I do." he said quietly.

Sam glanced over at him again. He'd seen Dean injured before. He's seen him while he was suffering, more times than he chose to remember, but somehow, there was more to it this time.

Bobby intervened. "Dean...let me ask you this. Do you think that Nathaniel is a danger to others?"

"No."

"And do you think that he is miserable, or in agony, where he is now?"

"Not exactly, but-"

"Do you think that it would be a terrible tragedy if we just let it be?"

Sam watched his brother closely. Several minutes went by, and Dean seemed to struggle with something, some great emotional weight. Finally he took a steadying breath and answered. "I know what you two are saying here. But yeah...yeah, I do think it's a tragedy. He has nothing here...nothing. The last happy moment in his life was when his mother was alive, and maybe, maybe he has a chance for that again, I don't know. But if it's left up to him, he'll just hang around that farm site, bored and desperately lonely. I'm the only one who can free him to go on."

"You keep saying that. Why? How come you, over anyone else?" Sam demanded.

"Because he knows about...about where I'm going. If I offer to do the same thing he did for all those other people, eat the sins; he just might let me. He won't let anybody else, I know he won't; he'd never allow them to make that sacrifice on his behalf. But when I was under the backhoe, I talked to him about alot of things, he understands about me."

It cut Sam to the quick to hear it. He turned away, he had no response to this. The car's occupants were silent for a while. Bobby and Sam exchanged glances after a time. Bobby nodded.

Sam sighed, his heart felt cramped and tight with a suffocating feeling of guilt. "Ok, Dean. We'll do that for Nathaniel. But only when you're fixed up, ok? Wait til then; it can't happen right now, or we'll be putting you in the ground alongside him. Don't do that to me."

Dean nodded. "Good." He could let go at that. He drifted away, lulled by the comforting rocking of the seat, and the rumble of the Impala's engine.

* * *

><p>Dean awoke slowly. He scanned around the room, bleary-eyed. Bobby was there this time, Sam was absent. "Bobby." he whispered.<p>

Bobby snapped to. "Hey, you're back with us. How are you feeling?"

"Like shit. Where's Sam?"

"I sent him to go have a snooze. He was weaving on his feet. He's out in the car, in the parking lot."

Dean licked his dry lips and forced himself to remain aware. He caught sight of his arm. "Aw crap, what the hell is _this?" _He blinked hard at the rig surrounding his left arm.

His doctor had entered, and he offered an explanation. "You're awake, good. Ok, do you want the long story or the short?" The orthopedic surgeon waited patiently for an answer.

"Short."

He smiled. "Ok, short it is." The doc pulled up a chair and sat for a moment. "Well, Mr. Hendrix; you have an open compound radius fracture, complicated by polytrauma and infection."

"Meaning?"

"You buggered up your arm. You shattered one of the bones, the radius. And you did a damned good job of it; it's an open wound, and a source of some serious infection. We debrided it and screwed it all back together, and right now it's held by what you see here; it's an external fixation device. We call it a cage, if you want. The cage is going to keep everything immobile for a little while, until the wound is healed sufficiently that we can consider some other kind of splint device. Are you following so far?"

Dean nodded wearily. "And?"

"And you are a sick man. You have some serious systemic infection, and as a result, you're being treated with a cocktail of antibiotics. We don't often see an injury like yours, usually forearm fractures are simpler, and don't have the complications you've presented here. I could go into endless detail about what exactly we had to scrape out of you there, but I have an idea you probably already know. Plus, we did a little work on your rotator cuff; you shouldn't have so much shoulder trouble after this."

Dean nodded again. He glanced down at the complicated steel structure surrounding his hand and arm. Pins pierced his skin in several places, it looked and felt irritated and sore. "How long for this frankenstein rig?"

"Until we deem it strong enough, and your wound is closed sufficiently to put you into something more conventional. I can't give you a date and time, it depends on how quickly you heal. Shame you couldn't have gotten in sooner; you could have avoided a lot of this."

Dean snorted. "Sorry, I was a little occupied." But despite the device that was surrounding his arm, he was grateful. He'd been tortured by dreams of amputation, and despite the pain, this was a far better alternative. But it did pose a unique problem...he was used to going AWOL from these places long before it was wise to do so. But he could hardly escape while he was encased in this unwieldly thing. He pressed his head back into his pillow in defeat.

The doctor rose to leave. "Don't worry...we've got it under control. If you experience an excessive level of pain, give the call button a beep."

Bobby thanked him. When he'd gone, he turned back to Dean. "Anything you need, boy?"

Dean shook his head. "No. I guess I'm pretty much taken care of. How's Russell?"

"He's ok. Headache and stitches. He's out at the police station, giving statements. I talked to him; he understands the importance of keeping all of us out of the story. He figured that since the three of them were all dead, he could do that."

Dean yawned. "Oh. Good. So what happened with you? How come you were out in Spencerville?"

Bobby frowned. "My purpose in Bradford decided to kick off before I got here. It don't matter now, but it's a damned shame. I'll tell you all about that when you're more awake."

Dean was mid-yawn again. " Sorry."

Bobby rose. "Don't apologize. You know, if you weren't such an obsessive headcase about that damned car of yours, we'd all be on a slab in the basement here. Or fertilizer out at Buell farm. Good job." He patted Dean's good arm. "I'm beat; I'm gonna go switch with your brother. Glad to see you mending, Dean. You had us worried."

Dean swiled wanly. "Well, thanks for tracking me and Sammy down. If it wasn't for you and Russ-"

Bobby grinned. "Yeah, I know. You owe me another one."

* * *

><p>Sam came in from his cat-nap. He approached the bed quietly, as Dean appeared to be sleeping. He performed his well practiced ritual of pulling two chairs together and snagging a spare blanket, and settled down to his vigil. He shifted in an attempt to find comfort, and sighed. Bobby had warned him of the state of things. He looked over the metal bars and pins that ran the length of Dean's forearm. It looked raw and sore, and he mumbled something sympathetic.<p>

Dean's eyes fluttered open. "Yeah, how do you like that little torture device? As if this didn't freaking hurt enough."

Sam whistled softly. "Man...I guess you really did a number on that. Did they talk to you about how long?"

Dean rubbed his eyes and motioned for his glass of water. "I don't know yet. He just said 'until it had healed enough'." He swallowed some sips and Sam took it from his trembling hand. "Sucks to be awake...I feel like crap in a pothole."

"Guess it doesn't help to say you look it. So, what did they have to do?"

"I don't know. Scrape out some stuff. Screw some stuff together. They can't put it in a regular cast until the hole is closed. Did you talk to Russell?"

"Uh, yeah, He called Bobby from the station. He got all the statements done. None of it mentions us, so the cops won't be asking anything as far as we're concerned. He's saying that Buell got in a fight with that third guy, and that he was the one that choked him with the apples. The rest was easier to explain. And they'll be busy cleaning out those tunnels anyway. Biggest bust in years."

Dean grimaced, and groaned despite his company. The last blessed mist of anaesthetic was wearing off, and he was beginning to really feel the steel pins newly piercing the flesh and bone of his arm. "So no explaining about Nathaniel either?"

"He didn't think that would be very helpful to his credibility. He was going to head home after, and he said he'd fix the lock on the door at May's. He's offered us that room until you can leave the hospital, otherwise it'll cost a fortune for a motel."

Dean squinted hard at him. "A fortune? Why? It'll only be a few days, and if you and Bobby share a room-"

Sam shifted uncomfortably, instantly regretting his words.. "Um..it actually might be a little longer than that. I did talk to a nurse, Dean... she said that these things stay on for six weeks on average.." He winced, waiting for Dean's reaction.

His tired eyes flew open. "What? Aw, no way, you've gotta be kidding me!" He swore and tried to pull himself upright to sit, but it jarred his arm, and he blanched, and was forced to settle back. "Six weeks?" he whispered. "Christ!"

"I know it sucks Dean, but it could have been worse."

"Oh yeah? How?" Dean raised his good hand and covered his eyes. He felt like a rat caught in a trap, pain forcing him to lie still and wait in quiet fear, until someone came along and either sprung him, or flushed him. He hated hospital stays more than flying. Almost. With their aliases, short stints were safer; he knew that the longer people had to scrutinize them, the greater the chance that they would be caught. He felt nauseated and beaten, and his emotions were close to the surface. He cursed softly. "I only have a year, for shits sake! Now I've gotta spend six weeks of it in here lying on my back eating tapioca and watching Regis?"

Sam stared at the tiles on the floor, waiting for him to calm down. "Dean, they said you would be wearing it for that time, not necessarily that you'd be stuck in here the whole six weeks. Just give yourself a little time, ok? Maybe we can move you to May's after your intravenous is done."

Dean didn't answer. He was devastated at the thought of what amounted to imprisonment, not to mention the threat of the real thing as well. And after seeing the stricken expression poor Nate wore when he realized what he'd done, the self loathing, the misery on the gentle spirit's face, he wanted more than ever to give him the peace he deserved. At least then, maybe _someone _would appreciate his sacrifice.

He decided that he would really rather be alone for a while. He tapped one foot in growing agitation, he wanted to push the damned call button so hard his jaw ached, but he would never do that in front of his little brother. He took a deep breath and sighed. "Look, I know you must feel pretty rough too. I'm pretty wiped, maybe you and Bobby should go get some lunch and find a motel room just for tonight. I'm not going to be very good company, and there's no point in you lying there like a cold pretzel waiting on me."

Sam was loathe to go, but he read his brother's mood. He needed space, and the best thing he could do for him now was give him his breathing room. He nodded, and got up, stretching. "Probably a good idea. And it's supper time, by-the-way; lunch came and went."

"Are you serious? It was only morning when we got here!"

"You were under for a really long time, Dean. We were getting pretty nervous." He smiled. "You should have seen Bobby; he was pacing a groove into the floor, twisting his hat into knot. They got pretty tired of his questions."

Dean smiled slightly at that. -_Nice to know- _"Alright. Go." -_just not too far_- "Do me a favour and send mother hen in, will you?"

"Sure Dean. Have a good night, ok?"

* * *

><p>The second Sam was out of sight, Dean pushed the call button. Bobby entered while the nurse was busy administering something helpful. "Hurts, does it?"<p>

Face still taut and pale, Dean shrugged. "Nah. Just a scratch."

Bobby snorted. "Sam told me what the short term plan is. Sounds good to me. You're ok for the night?"

The shot was already taking effect, Dean was visibly relaxing. "I am now. Listen, Bobby, this six week thing; you know as well as I do that that can't happen. They'll have run our cards by then and figured out there's no insurance. They don't really like insurance fraud a whole lot; they'll pull in the cops." He frowned down at the steel rig. "What the hell am I going to do with that?"

Bobby sat down again for a moment. "Ok, listen, you; I know your MO, and you'd better not even be thinking of heading out of here before your course of drugs is up. That's at least a week, so get it through your head; you are staying put at least that long. We'll see where things stand after that."

"But-"

"I want your word, Dean. I've been treated to the experience of you burning up sick after leaving your bed too soon, more than once, remember? Don't put your brother, or me, through that again!" He sighed, softening . "I do hear what you're saying, and I agree with you; we can't hang around here that long. But take your time, leave the details to me, alright?"

Dean didn't have much choice. The painkiller was swamping him with a comforting sleepiness and he could barely stay alert. He nodded.

"Atta boy. See you tomorrow, Dean." He patted his shoulder and left to rejoin Sam. Dean let go and was adrift before his friend reached the hallway.

* * *

><p>Bobby climbed into the waiting Impala. He rubbed his eyes, frowning. "We're gonna have to tie him to that bed."<p>

"Yeah." Sam sighed. "I know."

* * *

><p>They found a decent place a half hour away from Bradford General. Bobby took care of the payment while Sam loaded what they had with them into the room. Most of his own things were still at May Adam's. They ordered chinese and settled down in front ofthe tube, quaffing some cold beer and toasting the missing member of the trio. They exchanged stories. Bobby filled him in on his disappointing foray; the supposedly freed individual, who had somehow managed to break his cross-roads contract, only to die ignominiously, not to mention with very poor timing. And Sam filled him in on all the details regarding their encounter with the Sin Eater. In the end, they decided that it was some fairly bad luck all around.<p>

"So...you don't know anything at all about this guy's method? Nobody left behind who could fill in the blanks?" Sam asked.

"Nope. He kept it all close to the vest. His widow doesn't know anything about the deal in the first place. It took me weeks to get him to agree to meet with me, he was pretty skittish. Said he didn't want to jinx anything...looks like he did after all. Or it was just his time, I dunno."

"Huh." Sam drained the dregs from his can. "Too bad. I would have liked to talk to him, for sure."

"You and me both." Bobby was quiet for a while. He framed his next query delicately. "Sam, your brother seems real, I dunno, _concerned_ with this Nate character. He's pretty obsessed about seeing this through...any idea why?" He knew why already. But Bobby wanted to see what effect this had on the younger Winchester. Sam had said little about the whole thing, about the deal Dean had made for him. He thought it was time they talked.

Sam always wore his heart right out there, pinned to his sleeve for the world to see. He looked away now, pained, the turmoil within him rising swallowed hard and spoke. "I think it's pretty obvious. Nate was a kid when his life went sour. He had a father that was a domineering SOB and a mother he loved. And she was taken, in violence. And then the whole abandonment thing... Nathaniel probably felt like second hand garbage, like he was less worthy of good things. And in the end, he's made a life of sacrifice, dies bloody, and is terrified of going to hell. Sound a little familiar?" There was a painful bitterness to Sam's words. "And plus-" He stopped speaking.

Bobby watched him quietly. "Plus what..?"

Sam rubbed his eyes angrily. "Plus...he thinks that the deal he made, to bring me back...is one I would never do for him."

"Why would he think that, Sam?"

"Because...because I pretty much told him as much. I didn't say it exactly, but it's what he read from my reaction. He caught me off guard, in the tunnel. He asked me if I would. I hesitated, Bobby. I was... I _am- _still so screwed up over the whole thing. We had Buell hunting us down, and Dean was starting to get sick with his arm... I just froze for a minute. And then I answered him, in this totally lame way. He got this look on his face, for a second. I can still see it, Bobby, it was like...I don't know, just pain, pure and sharp, and nothing else. But then the mask dropped down and we covered it up."

Bobby sighed in shared misery with his young friend. "Sam...mind if I ask? With everything you know...would you?"

Sam looked up. Tears welled and he swore softly. "Yeah.. Jesus _christ_, yeah. For him and only him!"

Bobby reached out, laying his comforting hand on Sam's shoulder. "Then you've gotta find a way to tell him. Make him believe it, Sam. 'Cuz you and I both can see he's hurting. He's erratic and self-destructive, even if he don't know it. He always goes off the reservation when he's feeling like this. We have to work to keep his head above water, you and me."

Sam cried quietly, able to at last. Finally he wiped his eyes, and nodded. "Yeah."


	13. Chapter 13

13

_"You sure did a number on that arm, there. It's gone all punky; gonna have to take it off. Don't worry; we brought in a top man, well recommended, just for you. Dr Angus here has done hundreds of amputations, and some of 'em even survived!"_

_The grinning surgeon made way for the specialist. A withered old man, dirty and foul-smelling, approached. He wore a ridiculously large headband with a reflector, and he leered over Dean where he lay. His once white gown was stained, sodden with the gore of previous patients. His tobacco-yellowed hands were gnarled and lumpy with arthritis, and he brandished a rusty, red-crusted buck saw. He winked, grinning a snaggle-toothed parody of a smile._

_"Told ya, didn't I? Old Angus knows everything. Like I said; all you need is whiskey and a sharp saw!" He gripped Dean's arm at the elbow, poised to begin. "Too bad about the whiskey, though. I used it up when you was gone. Sorry, boy." He cackled and pressed the dirty, jagged tool against Dean's skin-_

"Dude, wake up! It's a dream...hey, it's just a dream!"

Dean had sat bolt upright, with a sleep-muzzled cry. He stared at his brother without comprehension, sweating in terror for several moments. Sam talked him back to reality with comforting words, as he gently pressed Dean back down to the pillow.

"Yeah...ok...sorry." Dean mumbled, embarrassed, but still shell-shocked by his nightmare.

"You alright now? Bobby and me are here, Dean. You're doing fine, you just had a nightmare."

Dean turned away and stared hard at his arm, assuring himself that it was still attached. The wildness in his eyes lessened. He took a deep breath and smiled wanly. "Wow. Just a dream, but christ!" He closed his eyes and worked to calm himself, to dispel the ugly imagery that had struck such terror into his heart.

Bobby spoke to him. "Well. Good morning. I guess we came just in time, didn't we?"

Dean snorted. "Yeah, guess so. I was just dreaming that it was...they were... Well never-mind. It was just stupid." He chose to redirect the attention of the room. "You guys have a good night?"

Sam and Bobby arranged themselves on the chairs ringing the bed. "Yeah, we were fine." Sam was pleased that his brother had been drugged into some apparently comfortable state during the night, nightmare notwithstanding. "Did you talk to a doctor yet?"

Dean had some better news. "Yeah, he said some stuff. Pretty much what you said, Sam. Four to six weeks in this rig, but as soon as I'm done with the antibiotic I can get out of here. I got some papers, over there, with instructions for dealing with this cage thing at home. Then they want to check on things in a couple of weeks, and maybe even take the thing off at that point." He looked sourly at his left arm. "I can't get this surgeon guy to sit still for more than five minutes, so I still can't get a real picture of this. I don't know yet how far I can push the limits on it." he growled.

"Well you know _my_ limits, boy. They're a week long, so remember them." Bobby reminded.

Dean scowled at the both of them. His mood was combative; it was difficult, but it was nonetheless a good sign. Sam changed the subject. "Well that's a lot better than what we first heard, Dean. At least you can ditch this place soon. I figured you'd be bored miserable already, so we ordered cable for you. It should be on by this afternoon, so at least you can see something other than ceiling tiles."

Dean was mollified somewhat. "Awesome. ..Porn channels?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Sorry. Wasn't offered."

"Too bad." Dean was interrupted by the arrival of another visitor. Russell Adams walked in, nervously approaching the bedside.

"Morning, Dean." he mumbled. He stared at the external fixation device. "Wow...that's nasty. But at least they didn't cut it off."

Dean had to laugh. Russell was nothing if not brutally direct. "Yeah. Thank god for small blessings. Nice zipper on your head there, Russ."

Russell touched his hand to his stitched hairline. "Yeah, well...not too much of a tragedy. You saw my grandad's shiny dome; that hair was gonna leave eventually." He sat down, relieved that Dean was not a typically sick person. Russ, like many gruff men, had trouble dealing with such things. "How long are you in for?" He made it sound like incarceration.

"Just a week. Then after a few more I lose the metal. How'd it go with the cops..?"

"Fine. They're all excited about the bust. There's a lot of that stuff being grown around here lately, but not on such a scale. They didn't seem like they needed any complications, so I didn't offer none." he grinned. But he sobered for a moment. "Hell, boys. I really need to talk about some things with you, but I'm almost afraid to ask..."

Bobby knew where he was headed. "You mean about the sin-eater."

"Yeah...and what you were saying; about it being the reason you come here in the first place."

Dean met his eyes. "You really sure you want to know? Because this isn't fairytale shit, Russell. You saw a little of what we deal with. It gets worse; it can get real ugly. The less people know about what's really out there, the better they sleep."

Russell frowned. "Well, I'll tell you this; folks around here have a lot of tales. Most of it is bullshit, but certain things stay constant. I know that we're a superstitious lot of hillbillies sometimes, but god-damned if some of it ain't true. My grandad talked about that whole Sin Eater business a few times. He was around when the the story played out, way back. He always told us kids to stay away from that place, and we always did. Hell, everybody did. But you grow up, and those stories start to look like foolish nonsense after a while..."

"Well, some are. And some aren't. Sam and me, and Bobby here; we look for these things. We read about them, research them, and we try to figure out which are just stories and which are dangerous. And when we come across the real deal, we try to fix the problem."

Russell shook his head, trying to absorb the new reality. "Well, ok, but what I don't understand is why? I mean, far as I can see, you don't come out holding the longer straw in the end. And you ain't gettin' rich off it. Why go through that?"

Dean looked to the others for input. He still didn't have a solid answer for that. Bobby tried to explain. "Well, I guess it's a different reason for each one of us. Me; I got into it because I lost some one close to me to something evil. At the time, I didn't know anything about it all. But I knew that what happened wasn't right, and sure as hell wasn't normal. So I started learning. And the more I learned, the less I was comfortable knowing these things were out there, screwing other folks up. And these boys here; well, they learned through their old man, after the family had their own sad experience with the darker side. And of course, Dean here; he's just an obsessive, tunnel-visioned nut-job, and his poor brother is just hanging on by his fingernails, trying to keep him from blowing up on a daily basis." He grinned at Dean, who mouthed something off-colour back.

Russell was quiet for a while. "Huh. Well, I think I'll leave it up to you all, then. I got my hands full with the crap that regular folk do around here. Think I'll just keep my eyes closed to the rest of it, if you don't mind."

"You're better off, Russ. Trust me." Dean snorted.

"Yeah, I see that." Russell got up, readying to leave. "Well, you boys know you're welcome to keep on at my mother's house. I fixed that door, so nobody will be surprising you no more. Dean; hope you heal up quick...and I'll look in on you from time to time." He tossed the new key to Sam, and paused in the doorway. "Oh...one thing I gotta ask you... Now that I know that there's lots of things from the kids' books that might be lurking out there, you gotta tell me this; Santa Claus...real or fake?"

Dean laughed. "Nope. Sorry, I'm not bursting that bubble. But stay away from that tooth fairy bitch. You don't wanna know about _that _shit."

Russell smiled uncertainly, not quite sure if they were joking, and left.

* * *

><p>Bobby leveled his stare at Dean. "You're not horse-shitting us over this <em>one week and you're free <em>thing are you? Cuz we can ask the doc-"

Dean rolled his eyes in exasperation. "No, I'm not, alright? All they do is send me out with some kind of ointment and my bunch of instructions, and then they see me again in a week. If things are good, they'll pull this off two weeks after that and put it in a regular cast after that. It's nothing."

"Alright. Good." Bobby was satisfied he was telling the truth. "Now listen, boy. We've gotta talk about this Nathaniel Willard. That police investigation sounds pretty cut and dried, so there's a good chance that work will go on on that farm site any day now. From what Sam and me have learned, the widow of Munro hasn't got much choice; if she doesn't stick to that part of the deal, then she stands to lose her sale of that property."

"Ok, and-"

"And.. maybe Sam and I should go do the salt and burn as soon as possible. Nate's a risk, Dean. He could harm the next poor SOB that gets into a tractor expecting a dull day of grading."

Dean shook his head vehemently at that. "No! No way! Look, you two don't get it; he trusts me! And I have something that can convince him...something neither of you can offer-"

"What, Dean? Come on, all we need to do here is what we always do; dig up the bones and deal with them. You know that it's the way it works. You've done it a hundred times."

"NO! _Jesus,_ no!" Dean looked away, distraught at the turn of events. He knew that he was a prisoner in the room for the next six days. The idea that Nate would be, for all intents and purposes, _dispatched; _felt profoundly wrong. He fought to control his irrational feelings. "Look; we don't have to force him away. He can go willingly, he can see everything he's been missing. He wants to, all he needs is the right encouragement."

Bobby glanced at Sam. "Go on then. What do we need to do to help him go?"

"He needs to believe he's sin-free. Just like all those others, the ones he ate the sins for. Nobody ever did it for him, so he thinks he's carrying around this huge burden of everybody elses' evils, and he'll go to hell. It's bullshit, I know. But he believes it. And the only way he'll go into the light, or whatever the hell he's supposed to do, is if he knows that he's going up instead of down. He knows about my deal, so he knows I'm going to hell no matter what. So that's why I'm the only one who can do this for him. He would never put that on another person, but if he knows it won't make a difference to my end, then maybe he'll let me return the favour."

Bobby sat and said nothing for a while. He could see the burning need in his friend to right this wrong. And knowing that the months to come would be difficult for all of them, he had no choice but to facilitate this thing. If they could bring this boy his peace, then maybe they could bring some to Dean Winchester as well. "Ok, then. We will wait out the week. Sam and I will keep an eye on that property, and Russ can fill us in on the local gossip. If we can keep a lid on the problems, then we can do it your way when you're discharged."

Dean relaxed visibly. "Thanks."

* * *

><p>The days passed with an agonizing slowness for Dean. He knew he'd given his word. He also knew that he'd had bad experiences in previous times when he'd jumped the gun on his hospital escapes. But it still took all his willpower to stay put. He thought a lot about Nathaniel, and how he would convince him. He thought of many things, some of which were unwelcome notions that haunted his restless mind at night, as he lay wakeful and anxious. He grated under the attentions of the nurses, who seemed intent on torturing him by fiddling with his metal contraption, checking that the pins remained tight, applying antibiotic gunk. It might have been different if they were <em>hot<em>, but this neck of the woods seemed to breed only capable, practical, homely women. He had sucked all the entertainment value from his mini TV, and it's annoying buzzy little disposable earbuds. And the meals were typical hospital issue...colourless, flavourless, and uniform in texture. He almost looked forward to the sensual extravaganza of tapioca. He had his visitors, of course. Both Sam and Bobby were dutiful in that regard. But they had time and funding constraints; Bobby had people looking after Rumsfeld, the dog, and Sam couldn't afford to stay the whole week in Bradford. Four days in, Bobby came by to say his goodbyes.

"Hey, Dean. Sleep well?" He dragged a plastic chair over and sat, offering a wilted taco in damp wrapper to the captive. Dean devoured it in seconds. When he'd wiped the remainder from his sandy stubble, he nodded.

"Yeah, thanks. Bored to shit, though. What are you up to?"

Bobby sat back. "Well...I've been sight-seeing, of course." he snorted. "And I went out and spoke to the widow of our deal-breaker dead guy. Waste of time, like I figured it would be. She didn't know anything, couldn't offer any names of anyone who might be a connection to it. ..And I spent some time talking to your brother."

Dean was instantly wary. "Talking to Sam. Well...good."

Bobby sighed. "Why the hell you two can't just sit down and talk this whole thing over, I just don't know!"

Dean turned and glared at him. "Talk about _what,_ Bobby? It's done already. Whether anybody appreciates it or not, I made the trade, and it can't be undone. So what do you think we should discuss? Sam... Well Sam's here, now, instead of in the ground. I don't regret anything, no matter how either of you feel, ok? So maybe you all should just shut the hell up about it and quit the freaking analysis! Spend your time figuring my way out of it instead!"

Bobby was taken aback by the aggressiveness of Dean's reaction. "Hey! Take a pill! Nobody's second-guessing you here! And nobody's wishing you never did what you did! But you are so damned wrapped up in how this is affecting _you,_ that you're forgetting how it's affecting your kid brother!"

Dean rose up at that. "How it's affecting _him? _I'll tell you how! He's freaking breathing! He's alive, instead of frying in hell, or wherever he was headed! He's here, safe!" He threw his plastic water cup across the room, frustrated and furious and hurt. "And I get to lay here, doing my count-down, having nightmares over what'll come next! Don't talk to me about how this is affecting Sam, ok? I already know how he feels about it!"

"NO! No you don't! Dean; for christ's sakes, you need to talk about this with him! Can't you even consider how this sacrifice of yours is screwing him up? Of course he's grateful! Of course he's glad you did this for him! But he's torn up by guilt and terror and grief; to the point where he can't even talk about it without breaking!" Bobby tried to calm his voice now. "You have to see that, boy. He hero-worships you...and the idea that you're giving in and go to Hades on his behalf has him tied in knots. And I know what you think; that only _you_ would ever make that sacrifice, but you're dead wrong!"

Dean stared hard at anything but Bobby. His foot tapped furiously in agitation, as he worked to keep that iron lid clamped down. Several moments ticked by, heavy with emotion. Dean tried to swallow away the bitter tightness that threatened to choke him. "We're done here, Bobby. We're done. I'm done, the deal's done. All this bloody talk is just a waste of time."

Both men wiped angrily at the moisture threatening to spill from the corners of their eyes. Bobby rose, and collected himself. "Dean, all I'm saying...is don't shut him out. You'll both feel better if you can air out some of this shit. I've gotta get back to the garage, the dog's only got a watcher 'til tomorrow. I'm glad to see you're healing up fine, I talked to your docs. ...I wish this whole goddamned trip had turned out to be worth it, but what can you do?"

Dean reigned in his own emotions. "Don't think like that, Bobby. We solved another job; that's always worth it. And I sure as hell appreciate everything you did, never mind what didn't work out. If you and Russell hadn't come after us...well, I guess we'd be haunting that field right alongside Nate." He held his hand out to his old friend. Bobby took it and shook it heartily.

"Take care, Dean. Stay the hell out of trouble, and let your brother look after you some, ok? For his sake, not yours."

Dean smiled wearily. "I will. Give that mutt a kick for me."

Bobby stood for a moment. He had so much more to say, so much more to work out... But he turned toward the door, pausing briefly. "Right. Well, say good-bye to Sam for me. And wish him good luck." With that, he was gone.

When he'd assured himself that he was alone, Dean gave in to angry tears. It was all so f~~ked up. He was gonna fry, and despite his sacrifice, nobody ended up happy. _What the hell was the point?_

* * *

><p>Sam did what he could to help May Adams out while he stayed there. It was as much to occupy his own whirlwind mind as it was to show his appreciation. He fixed some stray clapboards on the side of the house, he cleared her vegetable garden of spent plants, and turned the soil in preparation for next year. And she in turn, fed him as if he were a triumphant returning army. And the bottle of bourbon had mysteriously reappeared on the nightstand, fully intact. Somehow, old Angus's sixth sense must have picked up on it, as he took every opportunity to "visit" with the newcomer, although he was usually sent scurrying by his daughter-in-law. Russell joined them several times for dinner, and he filled them in on the local activities, especially the events at Buell Farm. Sam learned that the official investigation was nearing a close, and that Alice Munro had contracted a construction firm from Bradford. It would commence grading as soon as the police caution tape came down; which would, by Russell's estimation, be in three or four days. Sam now knew their time frame, and he hoped that Dean could fulfil his desire to release Nathaniel Willard from his self-imposed exile before it came down to an emergency salt &amp; burn.<p>

* * *

><p>Dean made up his mind. Once he was out of the hospital, he was not going to come back. He was too aware of the tenuous state of their identities and it would make no difference whether he spent the next five weeks in the hospital bed, or came in intermittently as an outpatient. It was the same time-frame, and either scenario would ultimately result in some very difficult questions. He spent the next few days pinning his surgeon down whenever he could, peppering him with questions. What function did the fixation device serve? Was it there only because the wound was open? How were they going to remove it? What kind of cast would he have afterward?<p>

Dean was satisfied with what he'd learned. He'd made a promise to Bobby, but the second his course of antibiotics was finished, he was going to discharge himself, officially or otherwise. Life was too short.

When the final day of his IV came, he breathed a sigh of relief as the tube was removed. He flexed his left hand a little, testing his range. It was limited, to say the least. He could move his fingers a little, as per the design of the metal bracing, but it was certainly painful. The sutures looked typical...the swelling and redness had abated some, and it was on it's way to healing. He rotated one of the pins slightly. -_Ow- _The twinge was understandable, considering that the stainless steel passed through all the structures of his arm into bone. But he got the idea how to remove them, when it was time.

Finally, Sam came around, ready to take him to May Adam's. He helped Dean change into his regular clothes, and collected all the printed info regarding after-care. He'd already spoken at length to the surgeon, so he had a clear idea of what needed doing. A nurse carefully fitted Dean with a blue sling, pouting at his leaving. He winked at her and blew her a kiss as Sam wheeled him out to the parking lot. As soon as he was allowed, he bolted from the chair and stalked to the car.

* * *

><p>While still in town, Dean asked Sam to stop at the nearest department store. He went in, assuring Sam that he could manage by himself, and didn't need to be hovered over. Dean went quickly to what he sought. There was a small section of stationery, and there he picked up a box of crayons. Next he found a pharmacist, inquiring about braces for wrists and arms. She showed him something that would work, and after throwing in some heavy duty tylenol, and some candy bars for good measure, he paid for his items and returned to the car. Sam looked at his plastic bag expectantly, but Dean refused to discuss the contents. He knew Sam would resist his plan to stay clear of Bradford General, and he was tired, he didn't want to argue about it just yet. He reached in and handed a bar to him, saying that was all he was getting. Sam wisely let it drop.<p>

Dean rebuffed any attempts at serious discussion. The drive was long, three hours. Sam tried repeatedly, but eventually gave up. They kept the conversation light, but Dean was still weakened, and he soon succumbed to the warmth and comfort of the car, and the monotony of the wooded miles passing them by. Sam glanced at him frequently, assuring himself that all was reasonably well with his softly snoring brother. As Dean slept, Sam could assay his state without his scowling resistance. Dean was still pale, and had dark circles defining his eyes. He had the metal rod-encumbered left arm sitting on a rolled up sleeping bag, comfortably higher than his heart. Once he was out, he slept like the dead, and Sam let him.

Sam regretted that he couldn't talk with Dean about the conversation in the tunnel. But he knew there would be other opportunities to bring it up. He would just have to figure out how to get him to agree to listen.


	14. Chapter 14

14

Sam woke him in May Adam's driveway.

"Dean, wake up, we're here." He got out and collected their things from the back seat as Dean extricated himself sleepily from the car. They escaped before any well wisher, or Angus, could slip in with them, and Dean settled onto his bed, tired and sore. He glanced around at the familiar sight, his eyes settling on the bottle on his night stand.

"Oh yeah..." he sighed. "The bourbon fairy came through." He reached over and uncapped it, foregoing the nicety of a glass. After several good swallows he offered it to Sam, who declined. Sam busied himself with re-organizing their room and their personal effects, giving his brother a little space to readjust to the real world. It was pushing supper time, and both were keenly aware of hunger. They knew that there was no take-out anything to be had in this neck of the woods, so it would fall to May to fill the need. And she didn't disappoint.

There was a gentle knock at their door. "Sam?" May inquired. He let her in, and she gave Dean a thorough visual once-over. "Well, welcome back!" she smiled. Dean smiled back, praying she had more to offer than best wishes. "How are you fairing?"

"Not bad." he shrugged. "This grill on my arm is a bitch, but other than that, I'm ok."

"Good." She patted Sam's arm. "I can't tell you how much I've appreciated having your brother stay here. He's been a great help, now that my Russell has his own place to worry about." But she remembered Dean and his state. "Oh but poor you! Look at that horrible thing, it's a wonder you're out of the hospital at all. You know, the gossip at the store is fast and furious about how you boys and my Russ brought down that nasty Buell, and his little underground drug farm. We may not have a whole lot of ways to earn a decent living out here, but most of us try to do it in a law-abiding way! Marijuana, I tell you! The kids here have enough to deal with!"

Sam jogged her as to her purpose. "Wow, May, something sure smells good.."

"Oh, yes! I made a big chicken pot pie for you boys. Angus and I already had ours, so don't you let him in if he comes begging. If you're hungry, I'll bring it around now."

They indicated that her timing was perfect. She retreated to her kitchen, reappearing moments later with a heavy tray of her efforts. She set it down at the table in the room, and wished them a good night before hastening back. The brothers devoured the meal in appreciative silence.

* * *

><p>After a few more drinks, the conversation turned to Nathaniel Willard.<p>

"Yeah, Russell said that they were going to grade any day now." Sam informed. It was hardly his intention to add the pressure of time constraints, but it was a reality.

Dean sighed. He was weary after everything, and the warm dinner and alcohol were hitting their mark. "So we need to head out there first thing tomorrow. I have to talk to Nate...I have to convince him to let me help him."

His turn of phrase struck Sam. _Convince him- _He had his own task set out, where convincing had to play a major part. Sam wanted nothing more than to see his brother stay in his bed for a few days. But the world was not going to stop spinning to accomodate them. "Ok." he agreed. "We'll go first thing, if it's nice out. I'm not dragging you out there if it's raining." Dean agreed to that, and they made a short night of it.

* * *

><p>Both slept well past what they'd planned. Dean had a rough night, fraught with dreams. Sam lay awake, listening, and trying to get a grasp on how to ease that disquiet, but Dean's words and sounds were too garbled to illuminate any of the terrors behind them. Sam woke him repeatedly, trying to derail whatever was driving his psyche. He would settle, and inevitably the R.E.M. battles would resume. He finally gave up. When the first rays of morning penetrated the curtain, Sam turned over and finally drifted off. It was ten when he went to May's in search of coffee. He was rewarded, she had a pot of it on the stove, cooking toward opaque blackness, and he carried two steaming mugs back with him.<p>

He handed one to Dean, after shaking him awake. Dean swore at him, then apologized, then grudgingly thanked him. He sat up, sipping at the hot, black contents of his cup in silence. When Sam had finished his, he re-read the doc's instructions, and then forced Dean to sit still and allow him to clean and disinfect the pin sites. When that task was complete, they discussed the day.

"Looks ok outside." Sam mused. "So, do you want to go to the farm site right off?"

Dean wanted nothing more than to settle back and sleep away the day. But he already knew that their time was limited regarding Nathaniel. Today was as good a day as any to approach him. "Yeah. If I can call him out, then I can try to convince him. He looked pretty traumatized, after Frank Buell died. I think he's pretty freaked out. I just hope he shows."

"He will, Dean. You and Nate, you really connected, and it might take some talking, but he'll come out for you."

Dean glanced at his brother. "Yeah...hope so." He grimaced, and lifted his metal-barred arm higher, resting it on his pillow. "Christ this thing is a pain-in-the-ass!" he griped sourly.

"It won't be long, Dean, before they'll replace it with a cast like I had. That was nothing, trust me."

Dean nodded absently, knowing full well that "they" weren't going to have anymore to do with it. He changed the subject. "What are we going to do for some breakfast?"

"May said she'd get something together when we wanted. I can go over and ask."

Dean nodded. "Yeah. I want to get out to Nate's as soon as possible. If they're going to be working that land any day now, I have to get this thing underway asap. If we can't get him to go away willingly, then we'll have to salt and burn. Either way we have to dig him up. Or you will, anyway." He was quiet for some time. "He's really uptight about his headstone. He told me it was the only thing he had, the only thing anybody ever gave him. We have to do whatever we do before another earth mover tries to dislodge that thing, or somebody else will end up in that gully."

Sam understood. There was urgency on several fronts. "Ok, Dean. We can go right after I grab something for you to eat."

* * *

><p>They polished off their breakfast, and both got into the Impala. Dean had moved toward the driver's side on instinct, but hindered by his sling, he realized that he was useless in that regard, and had to concede. It added to his black mood. They drove in silence to the place at the highway where the Buell farm road intersected. Sam parked, and they got out.<p>

"Dean, it's still a rough walk-" Sam began.

"I'm fine!" he growled back.

By the time they reached the grassy field that was once the farmstead, Dean was exhausted. But he refused any attempts Sam made at helping him along. The police tape was gone, the backhoe had been pulled up from the gully and taken to the wreckers. When they reached the little copse of twisted apple trees, Dean leaned heavily against one of the ancient, gnarled trunks. He slid down against it, and sat in the grass. Nate's headstone was within reach. Sam sat beside him, waiting for Dean to make the next move.

"What now, Dean?"

He shrugged. "Guess I call him out." He yelled Nate's name. There was only silence. He tried again, several times, but Nathaniel refused to show himself. Finally Dean resorted to something he knew would grab the spirit's attention. "Sam; give that stone a kick, will you?"

Sam turned toward it. He sized it up, and then threw his weight at it. It rocked slightly, dislodging a little from the heavy, clinging weight of the clay soil. It brought an immediate response. A yellow apple ripped from it's mooring and collided solidly with Sam's head. He swore and wiped at the pulp.

Dean couldn't help but laugh. "Nate! C'mon, show yourself, it's me, Dean."

Nate pelted Dean with another apple in response. That was less humorous to the elder hunter. "Hey! Stop it! I need to talk to you! Come on out, Nate!"

After a moment or two, the brothers became aware of the sudden drop in temperature. A mist formed, and it solidified into the image of Sin Eater. He stayed at a distance, wary and unhappy.

"What do you want from me now?" he said finally.

"I don't want anything from you, Nate!" Dean objected. "I came to talk to you, to thank you for what you did for us."

Nate glared at him. "What I did was murder. I murdered my own kin cuz of you. What else could you possibly ask of me now?" He was thoroughly, horrifyingly, in the form of Sin Eater. It unnerved both Dean and Sam to see him like that, after the gentler form of the boy Nate.

It struck Dean then, just how deeply Nathaniel was wounded by the event. He sighed, and softened his approach. "Nate, that was terrible; it was a horror for you to do that, I know. But you did it to save our lives. You saved four good people through that. Probably more, because that sonofabitch didn't blink at killing to protect his secrets. Frank Buell may be your relation, but he was hardly family, and he was a brutal bastard, just like your old man."

Nathaniel was silent. Finally he spoke. "I'm going to hell. I done murder, I killed my own kin. My soul's a ruin, for sure."

Dean looked away. But he regained his resolve. "You thought that already, before all this. You were the Sin Eater for how many people, Nate? Dozens? A hundred? All those strangers; you took on all their sins, every last one of them. Your soul was already as black as coal, so this has no effect on anything! And don't you think that motive and circumstance have any bearing on this? Christ, you stopped a murderer from burning three people alive! I think that pretty much counts in your favour!"

Nate sighed after a while. He sat down in the grass and dropped his disheveled head into his translucent white hands. "I hate this place. I'm tired of being here. I'm just so tired..."

* * *

><p>It was just what Dean wanted to hear. He couldn't stand the idea that Nathaniel Willard was robbing himself of the thing that he himself was denied. Nate had the brass ring; but fear kept him from grasping it and pulling open that door to glory, or peace, or happiness...whatever it was. To Dean Winchester, that was a tragedy of epic proportion.<p>

"What if I said I could help you?"

"Help me with what? It's done. _ I'm_ done. Ain't nothing you can do."

"Yes there is. You think you can't get into the pearly gates because you're a sin-eater. Well...what if somebody ate _your_ sins? Wouldn't that make you clean again?"

Nate frowned and looked away. "I wouldn't put that on nobody. I won't damn another to save my own soul."

"Well, what if there was somebody who was already damned..?"

Sam got up at that and walked away. He couldn't hear that, he just couldn't.

But Nate turned and stared at Dean. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that it won't make a damn difference if I took on every sin you carry, even your most recent. I told you, Nate; my soul is already spoken for. I'm going to hell whether I, or you, or anybody else like it or not. It's a fact. So why don't we make this count for something? Why don't you let me be your sin-eater?"

Nathaniel Willard was stunned. It was a ray of hope he had never even dreamed of. His feeling was still to reject the offer; no one had ever been so profoundly good to him, and he had no idea how to react. But then, he knew of Dean Winchester's fate. If he let him do this, it would not be his fault that his friend would be damned. He already was. Dean saw that hope spark brief and bright in the Sin Eater's eyes.

"...I..I could never ask it of you."

"I'm offering, Nate. You don't have to ask, all you have to do is accept it."

"I dunno, it feels wrong, to me.."

Dean sighed. "Nate, just do it for me then...please. I need my lousy end to bring some good...please."

The sin eater met his eyes. He stared at Dean for several moments, his eyes glowing with a mix of relief and gratitude and grief. He began to weep silently, tears falling without shame. "I accept, then."

Dean closed his eyes with relief. He turned and glanced over to where Sam stood some distance away, and sighed. "Good."


	15. Chapter 15

15

Dean got up and stretched, cold and tired from the exertions, physical and otherwise. "So...what am I going to need?"

Sin-Eater's voice was still rough with emotion. "You need a meal, to lay on the dead...on me. I guess you gotta dig my moldy carcass up. That ain't gonna be too pleasant, maybe you oughta forget about all this-"

Dean snorted. "It's not a problem, Nate. We've done it a few times before. What kind of meal?"

"Well...whatever you like. This part belongs to you, just like it did to me. You don't just take what they want to give you, or you'll get a bowl of cold gruel, full of beetles, and some skunky beer. You tell 'em what you want. I always asked for pie. I never had that, at home, 'cept for one special time every fall. My momma made it when the apples was ready and Pa was gone for a coupla weeks on the hunt. Her and me would eat the whole thing at once, just the two of us, after supper. We'd feel kinda guilty, but we laughed anyway...it was always our little secret."

"Sounds perfect. What else-?"

"That's it, plus your drink. Bring that, and a shovel. I'll tell you the words you need. When...when will you come?"

"Today, Nate. This afternoon. The day is perfect. It's all perfect, it won't ever be more so. Sam and me will come back before sunset, I promise. Do what you need to prepare, ok? Because this is going to happen."

Nate nodded. He whispered back, something too quiet for Dean to pick up. But the sentiment was clear. The chill dissipated along with his form. Dean shivered in it's wake, and turned towards the place where Sam was standing in the field. "Hey!" he shouted. "You can come back now, all the scary stuff is over. "

Embarrassed, Sam trudged back, noting that Nate had gone. "Got it worked out?"

"Yeah. All good. Nathaniel Willard has seen the light. Now all he has to do is walk into it willingly." Dean pulled his injured arm up a little higher, trying to ease the ache. "Listen, do me a favour, will you? I need enough of those apples for a pie. I don't know how many, so just grab a bunch of the ones that don't look too wormy."

Sam looked doubtfully at what remained on the branches. "Are you sure, Dean? We could probably find a pie or something down at the store-"

"No, these are better." Dean said simply.

Sam filled all his pockets, and Dean's for good measure. "You ready to go back?"

"Yeah." Dean sighed wearily. He wished the car was closer. He was feeling drained after the hike to get here, and Nathaniel's habit of dropping the air temperature while he was present had chilled him to the bone. He wanted to be horizontal for a while. He let Sam haul him to his feet. They trudged through the grass, carefully stepping over the tangle of vines that hid there. Sam wanted to talk while they walked, but Dean seemed determined to keep the conversation minimal. And truth be told, he recognized that Dean was tired, and the subject he wanted to broach was pretty trying. He didn't think that Dean was up to it at the moment. They finally reached the Impala. Sam pulled the door open and Dean slumped into the passenger seat. They drove the short distance to May's in silence.

* * *

><p>Once there, Dean settled in to take a catnap. Sam brought the apples he'd collected to May. She eyed them with an expression of distaste.<p>

"For heaven's sake, Sam, I have a bushel of decent apples in the shed. I'll make you a pie, that's no trouble, but I'd rather use those nice Courtlands instead."

Sam shrugged helplessly. "I know, May. They look pretty gross to me too. But Dean insists he wants it made out of these. Think you can do anything with them...?"

She picked over the pile. "Well I suppose so. Heck, these are what good old natural fruit looks like, I guess. We're all so used to the sprayed and pretty modern produce, we tend to forget what the real thing looks like. I'll give it a shot."

"Thanks." he said gratefully. "How long til we can pick it up? And I'll pay you, of course-"

She snorted. "Sam, you've done plenty for me around here. This one's on the house. It'll take about a half hour to put together, and another hour and a half to bake. Come by at four, it should be ready."

"Thanks May, I really appreciate this."

He returned to the room, and saw that Dean was asleep. He took the opportunity to clean and medicate the pin punctures again. Dean frowned but hardly stirred. "..evil nurse." he mumbled.

"Jackass." Sam countered, smiling a little.

He lay on his own bed for a while. He was nervous over the whole Nathaniel Willard thing. If things didn't work out this afternoon, it had repercussions for all of them. He knew that Dean was placing a huge emotional value on this. He understood it, to some degree. He wasn't exactly sure as to why Dean needed so much to feel that he'd personally led Nate to his peaceful passage. But he wanted it too, more now for Dean' sake. It was driving him crazy; the need to air their feelings, grief or anger, or whatever came out after all this. But he knew he would have to be patient. This would all come to a head, and he feared it as much as needed it. But only on Dean's schedule, that much was clear. He glanced over at his sleeping brother. He was curled up on his side, his injured arm resting higher on a pillow. He didn't seem to be dreaming, for once. He was breathing with a quiet ease, getting the rest he obviously needed. Sam's eyes settled on his face. Still pale. Still sporting the circles under his eyes that seemed to plague him since the 'deal'. The familiar pang of guilt gripped him. He had to turn away.

* * *

><p>Both were still asleep when May knocked. She peeked in, and greeted Sam, who roused himself at the sound. "Sorry, dear. But you said this was something you needed right away."<p>

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and thanked her. It looked and smelled delicious. "Wow. That's from those road-apples?"

"Yes." she beamed. "You know, after all the work to get the bad bits cut away, they turned out to be the sweetest, finest apples for a pie. I'm inclined to go get some for myself!"

Sam thanked her again, and promised to gather some for her later.

"Well, if you have time, " she said, "but after today, there won't be any to be had. Russell phoned and asked to speak to you earlier, but I didn't want to wake you. He said to tell you that the work was going to start on the farm site tomorrow. I don't know why he thought you would want to know that, but there you are."

"Ah. Thanks for telling us, May. It's a nice spot, maybe we'll take a last hike before it gets plowed under."

"Not with your brother, surely! Look at him, he's still snoring away! I really don't think you should be dragging him around the countryside in his state!"

Dean sat up at that. He'd been feigning sleep to avoid her, but he figured he should probably rescue Sam. "It's ok, May. We won't go far, or for too long. I just want to take some pictures before it's gone."

She sighed and put her hands on her hips. "Well, I'd say you were foolish, but to each his own. Although I will say they have some lovely postcards at the post office if you wanted pictures of this place. Mind you, they're probably fifty years out of date, but it'd save you the walk."

Dean smiled disarmingly. "Thanks, but I think we'll head out there anyway. And thanks for the awesome baking."

"You're a strange thing, you are." She shook her head but smiled, and left them.

They left soon after. Time was ticking, and Nathaniel Willard's fate hung in the balance.

* * *

><p>The drive was too short for Sam to try to talk with Dean. He left it on the back burner for now. He parked at the roadside, and again they trudged up the rough road to the field. Sam carried a box of what they'd need. Dean used a shovel as a walking stick. When they passed out of the cool shade of the trees, the sun greeted them with a brilliance that made them squint. But it was welcome. They followed their earlier path through the grass, which snaked in front of them, a flattened, parted line through the softly sighing stalks, passing the remains of the barn, which had almost been their funeral pyre, past Nathaniel's house; charred fragments of wood on a rectangle of carefully laid stone. It ended at the orchard, and they settled by Nate's headstone. Dean stabbed the shovel point into the soil and sat down carefully.<p>

"How's the arm?" Sam demanded.

"Fine." But Dean smiled sheepishly as he said it, knowing he wasn't fooling anyone. "..For an arm that was ripped off Terminator."

Sam leveled his gaze at him but said nothing. "So, how should we call Nate?"

They didn't have to. The air suddenly chilled dramatically, and he whispered a greeting.

Dean answered him. "Hope you're ready, Nate. It's time to go."

The spirit answered. "Yes. I think I am. This ain't a bad place, but...it's real lonely out here. It'd be awful nice to see somethin' new."

Dean was glad that Nathaniel was still on board. "Alright, good. I've got my meal ready here; just need my lovely assistant here to dig up your leftovers. Sit tight, Nate. I don't know how long this'll take; you just can't get good help these days, you know."

Sam mouthed something uncomplimentary and drove the shovel point into the sod.

* * *

><p>The digging was surprisingly quick. While most people were accorded the courtesy of at least six feet of soil depth, Nathaniel Willard's burial had been hurried, and Sam hit wood at just under four feet. He cleared away the soil to reveal the outline of a simple rough box. Dean shivered where he sat, despite the sun. Sam was streaming with the sweat of his efforts. "Ok. Done. Just tell me when to pull the lid."<p>

Dean addressed the thin, cold air. "Nate. It's time. Can we open the box?"

"Sure..." he whispered. "I ain't scared of seeing that." The mist formed again, materializing into the Sin Eater. His haggard, bloody form stood in front of them, looking uncertain. "You still wanna do this, Dean?"

Dean assured him that he hadn't changed his mind. Sam pried at the soggy remains of the lid. It came away in pieces, and after a few moments, he'd chucked the bits out of the way, revealing the body that lay within. He hopped out, and for the first time in many decades, the sun shone again on Nathaniel Willard's face.

Sin Eater smiled. "Hope you brought somethin' good to eat."

Dean sighed and covered his eyes. "Nate, seriously; f I have to look at _that _the whole time I won't be able to eat anything, I'll be too busy hurling."

The spirit looked down at himself. "Oh." he said sheepishly. "Sorry, Dean, I forgot." He disappeared from their view for a few moments, reappearing again as the young boy with the sun warmed skin and bare feet. He sat down, cross-legged at the graveside, curious now.

"That's a lot better, Nate. You don't want to scare your poor Ma when she sees you."

Nate raised his eyes to Dean. The mix of fear and worry and aching hope within them was heart breaking. "Dean..." he asked quietly, "..do you really think-?"

"She'll be there, Nate. I know it."

Nathaniel nodded. He was frightened by it all, but once he had placed his faith in this process, he had no doubt that Dean would steer him home. He shifted forward and peered down into the hole. He took in the sight of his own now corrupt form, lying brown and shrivelled amongst the composted remains of the pine box. "Well that's pretty hard on the appetite, ain't it?" he grinned. "I never had to look at nuthin' like that. The dead was always laid out in their sunday clothes, all neat and tidy and smelling like lavender and rosewater and such. Didn't have no trouble eating what was laid there on them. I'm sure glad I ain't you."

Dean glanced at him wryly. "Yeah, thanks alot."

Sam snorted. "Don't worry, Nathaniel. Nothing ever puts that one off his feed." He opened the box he'd packed. In it was the apple pie, smelling delicious. There was a six pack of beer, and a tray. He retrieved the tray and tied the twine to it, so that they could lower it into the hole without it tipping it's contents onto the ruinous body below.

"Lord, that looks good." Nate said. "I always asked for pie."

Dean smiled. "Yeah, I know."

Sam was looking longingly at the golden, flaky crust. He picked off a little, before Dean slapped his hand. "Aw c'mon, Dean, aren't you going to share? You can't eat the whole thing-"

"Yeah, I can! " Dean turned to Nate. "I don't know. What do you think, Nate? Does he deserve a piece?"

Nate smiled shyly. "You gotta share with your kin. Besides, he can have a piece for me, since I can't taste nuthin' anyway."

Dean cut the pie into quarters. He lifted two off the plate and placed them on the tray, along with one of the bottles. The other two he handed grudgingly to Sam. "So what do I do now, Nate?"

"You gotta put the tray on my belly down there. Or whatever's left. Then you close your eyes and think about the dead person, think about the sins comin' out. And you say the words."

Sam lowered the tray by the ropes. When it was resting on something, he let them go slack and waited.

Dean stared down into the hole, trying to see only the tray with it's tasty contents, rather than the unappetizing view underneath. "Tell me the words again, Nate."

He did so, and Dean closed his eyes and recited it. "Ok, here goes. I give easement and rest now to thee, friend. Come not down the lanes or in our meadows. And for thy peace I pawn my own soul. Amen." He opened his eyes. "Is that it?"

"Yes. Now the sins are in the offering. You gotta eat it to finish this thing." Nate met his eyes, worried. "You still want to? Cuz you don't have to-"

Dean sighed with exasperation. "We've been through this, Nathaniel. It won't have any effect on where I end up. You know that." Sam stared hard at the ground, while Dean grinned. "Besides, that pie is mine!"

"Ok then. Hope it's good."

* * *

><p>It was. It was spectacularly good. Sam pulled up the tray and they dug in. May Adams wasn't much of a looker, but damn she could cook. Dean finished his off in half the time it took Sam, and he ogled his brother's portion as he quaffed his beer. Sam rolled his eyes and gave him another quarter. Dean traded him another beer in return.<p>

"Ok Nate. There you go, you're officially sin-free. Feel any different?"

Dean regretted his offhand manner as soon as he'd asked. Nate sat, stricken, tears beginning to fall from his sandy lashes. "I don't. I don't feel nuthin, Dean. I should feel...purified. None of that filth felt like it went away, it's still in me... Something's wrong, I know it-"

"Nothing is wrong, Nate...we did it exactly like you always did. If it ever worked for anyone else, then it worked for you. Those sins are mine now, you are delivered, you hear me?"

Nate shook his head miserably. He glanced over his shoulder for a moment, squinting before turning his eyes back. It struck Dean that had seen him do that several times before, and a thought occurred to him. "Listen to me Nate...I want you to look around and tell me what you see, that we can't."

Nathaniel stopped his weeping. He snuffed and spoke quietly. "Just that bright spot. It's always there, in the corner of my eye. I try not to look at it. It kinda pulls at me. I stay away from it."

"Aw, Nate..." His doorway had always been there. All these years, he'd been too afraid to approach it. Dean swallowed the tightess in his throat and spoke to him again. He framed it in a way that he thought the boy would believe. "That light...it's your lantern. It won't hurt you, don't be afraid of it. Walk toward it now...let if take you. Go, Nate; tell me what you see-"

"..Are you sure, Dean? I been staying away from it for so long...I don't know-"

Dean met his eyes. "Trust me, Nathaniel."

The boy got up, and shyly faced the thing that was invisible to the living, who could only watch blind as it played out. He took a few tentative steps toward it. "It's warm..." he whispered. But he turned back to Dean. "It tugs at me, Dean, like it wants me. I'm scared, what if it's the fire, or-"

"It's not fire, kid. No sulphur, no brimstone. Open your mind to it...you can feel it, it's good. Nothing bad is behind that door, I promise you.. It's your reward, you've earned it. Open it."

Nate's image was fading, becoming more and more transparent. They waited, holding their breath, while the spirit walked toward it's destiny. Finally he disappeared from their view. His whisper floated down one last time, so quietly, so reverently, so full of wonder...it was almost lost amongst the rustling of the warm breeze through the golden grass.

"_Momma."_

* * *

><p>They sat in silence for some time, mesmerized by the sweet and poignant passing of Nathaniel Willard into his great reward. Neither wanted to speak, for fear of shattering the perfection of that moment. They finished off the six pack, each listening to the quiet sounds of the world around them, each soaking in the breeze and sunshine of the warm afternoon, as if to store it as a bulwark against other, less pleasant days.<p>

The completion of it all brought some measure of solace to Dean. At least now, whatever happened to him in the end, he would know that it made a difference here. It was a small comfort that he found sharply lacking when he looked at his brother. But he steered his mind away from that bitter quagmire; if he allowed himself to step near it, he could sink too easily into those black and hopeless depths. And he didn't want to address any of that; not here, not now, at any rate. He wished he could bottle that moment when Nate realized the beauty of what he'd finally embraced. He needed to remember it.

He broke the spell first. "Well, I guess he's happy now."

Sam made some small sound of agreement. "Do you think we still need to burn?"

"No." he said, decisively. "He's gone. He won't ever come back to this shithole now. Just fill it back in." He got up with a groan; stiff and tired, and wandered off a little as Sam shoveled back the loose soil. He stood in the soft, waving grass, running his hand absent-mindedly through the golden seedheads, feeling the grains separate from the dry stalks and scatter through his fingers. -_don't waste this, Nate_- he thought. -_don't ever come back here_. The bright and beautiful completion of Nate's life was something he would never forget, but it made his own reality fade to a colder shade of grey by comparison. He stared back at Sam, who was packing the last shovelfuls of dirt over the grave, and the grey darkened one more shade. He sighed deeply, trying to ease the tension, the tightness in his chest, but it would not leave him. Finally he did what he always did, he pushed the feeling down into the box and clamped the iron lid down tight, and he turned and walked back.

"Hope you got May's tray out" he said.

"Of course. It's over there, in the grass." Sam kicked the last clods of clay from the shovel, as Dean went to retrieve it. It lay by the headstone.

"What do you figure this thing weighs?" Dean mused, wiggling the stone slightly at it's loosened base.

Sam wiped at the sweat beading on his face, and sized it up. "It's not too big. We've seen a lot bigger. Not very thick either...maybe a couple hundred pounds?"

Dean nodded. "Think you could carry it?"

Sam looked at him quizzically. "Yeah, I guess. If I can get it out. Why, Dean?"

"I don't know...I just think it shouldn't stay here. They'll only break it up, or bury it. It was important to Nate. I kinda think it should go in the churchyard he talked about. Somebody should remember him..."

Sam watched him for a moment. "Sure, Dean...it's a good idea. He deserved that much." He took the shovel and cut out the sod around the base of it, and threw his strength to the task of dislodging it. After some grunting and cursing, he got it pulled up out of the resistant suction of the damp clay, and laid it flat on the grass. Once free of the soil, it's weight was more manageable. "I can carry that. Are you ok carrying the other stuff?"

Dean nodded and gathered the remaining items, and they walked with a slow and awkward pace back through the grass and down the road. When they reached the car, they laid a towel over the upholstery and deposited the heavy stone on the back seat. The rest went back into the trunk. Both were tired. They leaned against the warm black of the Impala. Sam decided that now was as good a time as any, he broached a tender subject.

"Dean, I need to talk to you...about some stuff."

Dean frowned. "No you don't."

"Don't do that! Don't always shut me out when there are important things to-"

"Ow. Time to go, Sammy, my arm hurts."

"Don't play the wounded card! And it's not your arm that's hurting you right now, I can see it in your eyes! That's what I need to talk to you about."

"Lord, here we go. How many tissues am I gonna need?"

Sam roared at the clouds in absolute frustration. He knew he was beat. He could hammer and hammer away, but Dean would never crack and open up. He realized he would never get anywhere while Dean was sober. He needed the confinement of the room at May's, and the bottle of bourbon. He sighed and let it drop for now. He helped his brother into the car, and they drove in painful silence back to May's.


	16. Chapter 16

16

In truth, he wasn't faking; his arm was really bothering him, and the repeated treks up to the Buell farm had taken a toll. Dean dropped heavily onto his bed and unclipped his hospital issue sling, and carefully arranged his injured limb on the stacked pillows. He threw his good arm over his eyes, sighing with weariness. Sam searched and found a bottle of painkillers, shaking out a few and handing them his brother.

"Here, take these, they'll help." He poured out a good measure of bourbon and passed it over.

Dean sat up and accepted both. "Aren't you supposed to be nagging me not to drink while I take these now?"

Sam snorted. "Like that ever had any effect on what you decide to do. Besides, after everything that happened, go right ahead, knock yourself out."

"I just might." He swallowed the pills with a deep draught of the drink, feeling the welcome warmth in the pit of his stomach. He settled back again. "That was good, though, wasn't it?"

"What, the pie, or Nathaniel's passage..?"

"Both." he sighed.

"Yeah, Dean. Very good...one for the diary."

Dean smiled. "You keep a diary?"

"Yeah, right! Not with you around!" Sam poured another drink for him, and one for himself. Dean accepted it without comment this time. As soon as it was empty, Sam poured a healthy third.

"I'm not that easy, you know. You gotta at least buy me some flowers."

Sam snorted. "That's not what I heard." He sat beside him and took the opportunity to check out the pins. Dean groaned in annoyance as Sam looked him over. "Don't bitch, Dean. If we don't keep an eye on this you could get serious infection."

Dean rolled his eyes. "I don't know how; I'm still so pumped full of antibiotics." But he stayed still while his brother dealt with the six points of entry. He was secretly glad that it was being looked after. Lord knows, if it were up to him, they'd be gangrenous by now. Two in his hand, two above his wrist, and two in the thick of his forearm. If the break hadn't been so damned close to the end of the bone, they wouldn't have had to have it put on. The lower four hurt more, as they were prone to movement. He couldn't wait to pull the stupid thing off. He barely let Sam finish his ministrations before he shrugged him off. "Ok, you're done. Any more is just sadism." he growled.

Sam produced a bag of smarties, a pair of shot glasses and a deck of cards. "Ok, dude. The game is 21. Winner gets a smartie, loser drinks one shot." He shuffled expertly.

"_One_ smartie? Well that sucks. How about five?"

Sam weighed the sack. "Fine; five. And no picking colours." It was a calculated risk. Dean was already two generous glassfuls ahead of him, and the effects were going to be magnified by the painkillers. And while Dean had a capacity for drink that bordered on legend, Sam was bigger, and was cultivating a decent tolerance himself lately. He felt fairly sure he could control the evening to achieve his goal.

* * *

><p>When the smarties were gone, and a number of shots had been consumed by both sides, the interest in the game had run its course. Dean was slurring. Sam himself was feeling considerably less constrained. He decided to play his real hand now.<p>

Dean lay on his bed. Sam sat on the floor, his back resting against the side of his brother's bed. They were quiet for some time before Sam began. "Hey...Dean..?"

"Yeah?"

"I really need to talk to you about something-"

Dean sighed in irritation. "Not now, Sammy."

"Yeah, now! C'mon, Dean! You keep pushing me away. I really need to-"

"Aw crap! Sam, we were having a good time here. Don't start-"

"No! Don't do that! This is important-"

Dean turned away and curled up. He was really feeling the effects, and he did not want to start an argument now, for fear of losing his carefully crafted control. "I said not now!"

"Dean, just talk to me, please! I need you to know how I feel, and I want you to tell me-"

"I'm tired, ok? And I'm freaking loaded! Man, why do you always have to go on and _on_ about shit? You're draining the life out of me, for christ sakes!" He turned the clock radio up loud, its out of tune screech filling the room.

Sam yanked the plug out. "Would you just stop it? I'm trying to-"

Dean glared at him. "You're trying to wreck this, is what! Jesus, Sam! Can't you give me my five minutes of warm fuzzy about things before you ruin it with your freaking whining? Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don't want to hear what you have to say? I already heard enough before! Nothing you can say to me now makes any difference! What, do you want to rehash the whole thing? Fine! Yeah, I sold myself to fry for eternity, and yeah, it was a stupid thing and yeah, I should never have done it! I threw away everything to bring you back, and yeah, I know, you never asked me to-! "

The bourbon had been more than effective. The iron lid was suddenly thrown wide, and the contents of his secretive container boiled up. He ground out the rest now through gritted teeth. "And if all that isn't enough to keep me from ever sleeping again, I get to sweat through my minute-by-minute countdown knowing that this whole deal is so totally f~~king lop-sided, that it was all a god-damned waste anyway! And why is it a waste? Because I know, no matter what you say, no matter how hard you try to lie your way out of the truth; tthat you would never, _ever _have done it for me! So why don't you tell me, Sam; what the hell is left to cover _now_? It's done! Live with it! _I_ have to!"

* * *

><p>Sam sat in open-mouthed shock at the outburst. He had no idea how deep and painful Dean's misplaced resentment was. He could not believe what he was hearing. "How can you even think that? Dean, you're wrong, about-"<p>

"Just get away from me, you clueless sonofabitch! You know; right from the start, all you've done is let me know I screwed up again! You never once looked at me with any hint of gratitude! All you do is judge me, day-in, day-out! And I don't know why that surprises me; I should have expected this, it's just like always! As soon as you decided you weren't a kid any more, you rejected me and conveniently forgot every damned thing I ever did for you! All the times I protected you, all the fights I had to get into after you opened your big mouth to some bully, the times I covered for you when Dad was on the war-path, or all the things I tried to do to make up for our crappy upbringing! You got all the advantages, because _I _made sure! And the second that paid off for you, you took off to California so you could leave the trash behind, didn't you! Well guess what, Saint Sammy; you're made up of the same damned crap that I am! You can't escape it, and don't you dare sit there thinking you could have made it on your own, because it was me who cut your paths clear for you! And you've resented me ever since I took you away from it, never mind reality! So what if I'm damned now? That's nothing! You've been damning me every day since you left for Stanford. I'm used to it now, so what's a little longer?"

He was running out of coherent words. He sat, chest heaving, eyes shining with fury and bitterness and hurt. But he wasn't finished. The rest came out in a strangled whisper. "And do you wanna know the truly screwed up part of all of this? I'd still do it all over again! Knowing everything, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I wouldn't have to think, or weigh, or _analyze_ anything! I'd just do what I'm supposed to do!"

* * *

><p>Sam had heard enough. Recovered from his shock, he roared back. "Shut up! Just shut up, Dean! God, you're so full of feeling sorry for yourself, you can't even conceive of the idea that this could be hard on anybody else! Your stupid pride won't let you even peek over that bloody brick wall of yours! You did this thing, and it's so huge, so f~~king unbelievably heavy, and you did it for <em>me!<em> And I'm just supposed to kiss your ass in thanks, and keep my mouth shut and never ever talk about any of it-? You said I never showed a shred of gratitude, -well you never let me! You handed me your life, and I'm just supposed to take it and shove it in my pocket and go on as if nothing's different! Well I can't live like that, Dean! I won't!"

He swore and sat, shaking with the intensity of it all. "And yes! _Yes,_ alright? I _am_ angry! I'm pissed beyond telling you! I'm going nuts here! Christ, it's like I just woke up in the hospital and found out you donated your liver to me to save my life! So what if it means you're doomed; what the hell, it's only _Dean,_ right? At least Little Sammy is saved! And now I can watch your life tick away in front of me, knowing it's all on my head! And yes, I _am_ fully aware of every damned thing you've ever done for me, ok? Painfully aware! You think I never noticed Dad's uneven attention? God, the guilt suffocates me whenever I even think of our happy little family! You were the one looking out for me every day, I know that; and nobody ever did that for you! And _this_ is your reward..._this_ is what I brought you!"

He dissolved into tears. "How do you expect me to react to this, Dean? The guilt, and horror, and...everything! It's f~~king drowning me!" He broke down, sobbing. "I am trying to find a way to live with this, but I can't! I can't make any of this right, or better. Not in one year, not in a hundred! So you tell me how I'm supposed to get up every day and keep going? Tell me that!"

* * *

><p>Dean sat in stunned silence, pained and confused by the depth of Sam's reaction.<p>

Sam wiped his eyes angrily. "And you're full of shit, you blind jack-ass. I _do_ remember all the stuff you did for me, how can I not? It wasn't you I was running from, it never was! It was every new crappy town we woke up in, it was every dirty, bug infested motel, it was Dad, and his bitter, obsessive drill-sergeant crap, and this whole shitty life-!" He fought to get a grip. "Do I have to draw a picture for you to get you to understand? I didn't leave Stanford with you to find Dad. I just left with you. My life was falling apart! I needed you, and going with you was all I could think of that made any damned sense."

That hit it's mark. -_I needed you- _Dean stared at Sam for a moment. It dawned on him now, the effect he had, the impact his own decisions had made on his brother's life. He dropped his head into his hand, overwhelmed by his own emotions, and Sam's simple, but powerful statements. The room was beginning to spin. "F~~k." he choked.

Sam pulled himself together a little. "Dean, all I wanted to do was talk to you. I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate what you did for me, ever since that day. And how guilty and...undeserving...I feel. But you never let me do that, you shut me out at every turn. And then you asked me that question in the tunnel, and it totally caught me off guard. I was more worried about getting our brains blown out by Buell at that moment. I sounded so freaking lame when I answered... And I know what you thought after; I saw it on your face, clear as day, but you wouldn't let me talk to you to fix it!"

Dean turned away, not wanting to relive that. Sam pulled him back by a gentle handful of his hair. "Listen to me, you stupid moron! Let me finish. I hesitated, because the question was so...important, and I wanted to say this right. I didn't hesitate because I was afraid to say I wouldn't do it for you if things were reversed! All I wanted was to wait til the right time, and _that_ sure as hell wasn't it." He sighed. "I've been thinking about this whole thing non-stop since it happened, Dean...trying to sort it out. I don't know where I was when you brought me back. I don't remember anything, bad or good. But what I came to figure out was that...if you were dead, and I thought you were somewhere better, somewhere... somewhere beautiful...I wouldn't try to reverse it, no matter how much I wanted to. But if I thought for a second that you were suffering, I'd dive into the pit headfirst to save you from that. Dean, please, you have to believe me..."

* * *

><p>Dean stared at his brother. He saw the tears, the earnest intensity in Sam's eyes. He saw the truth. He crumpled under the weight of it and lay on the bed, crying and cursing. Finally he whispered, "I'm sorry...I'm sorry... I did what I'm supposed to do. Save Sam. I played my role."<p>

Sam pulled him up and hugged him tightly. "I know. I know. Thank-you."

"I'm so freaking scared of this-"

"Me too, Dean." He released him and forced him to meet his eyes. "But I swear, Dean; I _swear..._you, me, and Bobby, we will find a way out of this! I promise!"

Dean said nothing. but his expression spoke volumes. Finally he nodded. He lay back again and covered his eyes. "_God_ I'm totalled." he groaned. "I might not even remember any of this."

"I'll remind you."

"I'll probably hurl later."

"Yeah, I know."

"...Sammy?"

"sssh...it's alright, Dean. I know."

* * *

><p>He was sick. Spectacularly, exhaustingly so. It was a rare thing for him, but the circumstances at that time conspired against him. Codeine, prodigious amounts of bourbon, three quarters of an apple pie and an emotional roller-coaster ride. I was pretty much a given. Sam got him through that, and the two of them slept in the next day until well past noon. But that unpleasantry aside, they had made a significant break-through in terms of communication. They both understood now, some of the impact that this whole thing had. It was necessary, and it was good. But Sam had no illusions that it would continue to remain so open between them. It just wasn't the way things worked. He saw the brick wall back in place by morning, the iron lid clamped back down. And the truth was; he relied on his brother to play that rock-steady role.<p>

When they finally did get up, Sam asked him; "So...how ya feeling?"

"Shut up."

Sam laughed to himself and got up. He washed up, dressed, and headed next door to see what he could talk May into providing for breakfast. Her camp coffee was always on the stove, he brought back two cups of it. Dean accepted his with a grudging wince. "..ugh... Bowl of aspirin, please."

"Little hung over are we?"

"No." -_not a little- _"Why are you up so early?"

"It's way past noon."

"Yeah, _and?"_

Sam just shook his head and left again for May's kitchen. Dean groaned and sat up. He felt lousy. Both his head and arm ached with a nauseating intensity. -_God, I'm out of practice- _He sighed, berating himself for acting like such a neophyte. But despite that, he felt...good. He felt lighter, somehow. He did remember the evening. He remembered the shouting, the emotion. He remembered the topic that brought it all to head. He lay back down, going over it all.

* * *

><p>Sam returned, laden with toasted western sandwiches. He handed one to Dean. Sam sat down with his own, and wolfed it down. He waited patiently until Dean had consumed his. When they were both fortified, he brought it up. "So...Dean...are we ok?"<p>

Dean looked at him quizzically. "Ok? are we _ok..? _What the hell are you talking about, Sam?" He knew exactly what he was talking about, but he wasn't about to make it easy on him.

Sam was crushed. All the gains they'd made last night, all the understanding... "Nothing...nothing, forget it."

Even Dean couldn't withstand that. He relented. "Aw Sam, I'm just messing with your head, ok? Yeah. We're good. We really are, ok? At least as far as I'm concerned. What about you?"

Sam nodded. He too felt better about the state of things after the catharsis of the previous night. He knew he shouldn't keep flogging it; both of them had had their time on the soap box. Both knew where the other was coming from...and headed. It was enough, for now. "Yeah...we're good. As long as you know that Bobby and I will gut ourselves to undo your mess."

Dean made a wry face. "I'm pretty much counting on it."

They were quiet for a moment.

"Alright then." Dean settled back. "Now all we have to deal with is this stupid metal rig."

Sam turned to him, successfully derailed. "What do you mean? You have an appointment in a few days; they'll probably take it off and put you in a cast then."

Dean sighed. Sam was always the optimist. "No...they'll probably put me in cuffs. Get real, Sammy. It'll have been two weeks. Don't you think they'll have figured out that the paperwork is bullshit by now?"

"Well, maybe not-"

"Sure. _Maybe_ not. But if you don't mind, I think I'll pass on that gamble. I've been there before, remember? Unless it's done by a hot blonde in a black teddy, I don't ever want to be hand-cuffed to a bed-rail again. It's reality check time, Sam. This rig is coming off, and it ain't the good medics who are going to do it."

Sam swore. He hated it, but he knew Dean was right. He sighed in exasperation. "Yeah; fine. But can you at least wait the proper amount of time that they would have done it in? For shits sake; don't jump the gun on this, you could seriously affect your recovery. How are you going to be able to hunt properly with one gimpy arm?"

Dean stared down at the metal bars and pins. His gut instinct was to pull the damned thing off himself, later. It was an encumbrance, and he hated encumbrances of any kind. But Sam spoke the truth; he could really do some long-lasting damage if he gave in and removed it early. And he couldn't afford that kind of limitation; not with their line of work. "Alright. A few more days. But after that I'm ditching it."

It was at least a compromise. I was the best that Sam could expect. "So I guess that's why you bought the arm thing at the drug store. I was going to get rid of it so you'd have to do things properly, but unfortunately, you're probably right about the hospital."

"You nosy little bitch!"

"Uh huh. But I don't get the box of crayons."

"Oh yeah, I forgot about those. And that reminds me, we've got to get that stone off my seat springs before it flattens everything. Feel like a little tour of the countryside? I want to find the graveyard, and put up Nate's stone."

"Sure, I guess. But you didn't answer my question."

"You'll see." he said. He rose and made motions to join the living. "Sam, I need a favour...I need you to ask Angus if he knows what Nate's mother's first name was. And if he knows where the old church is. Do you mind?"

Sam groaned. "Aw, crap, Dean...don't make me go talk to him. He forgets who I am every time, and tries to brain me with his cane. Takes me fifteen minutes to convince him I'm not there to steal the silverware."

"C'mon, Sammy. Hell, I'd go, but you know... sore arm...ouch."

Sam rolled his eyes and mumbled something, but he went anyway. By the time he returned, Dean was waiting for him in the car.

''Geez, you're gung ho, aren't you?"

"That damned thing's wrecking the upholstery. Look at the wrinkles at the edge!"

Sam snorted. "It'll be fine. The church and grave yard are up May's road a few miles. She said they don't do services at it anymore; haven't for years, not enough people. But they still keep the grass cut."

"What about her name, did he know it?"

"Grace. Gracie Willard. He seemed pretty sure about it, and he made me pay him five bucks before he'd tell me, so it's probably right."

Dean smiled. "Good."

* * *

><p>The small, rectangular frame building sat at the end of a short, gravel lane. It was old; white paint was peeling from the clapboards, and starlings were nesting in the holes in the eaves. It sat quietly on its postage stamp of trim, green grass, flanked by two massive sugar maples, each sporting patches where their leaves were beginning to hint at the crimson they would become later. The tiny grave yard was to the side, a collection of faded marble headstones sitting crookedly in the ground that they'd occupied for a century. Here and there, more modern ones had been fit between. The property was bordered by a simple old wire fence, rusting now. Lilacs, long past flowering, grew rampant at the edges, encroaching on the lawn. Sam began the arduous task of hauling the stone out of the back seat under the critical eye of his brother, ignoring his very vocal protests that it would scratch or break something on the way out. He huffed and carried it through the gate, and deposited it on the grass. "Ok, Dean. Shut up already. Where do you want me to put it?"<p>

Dean looked the spot over. In one corner, a crab apple tree grew over the fence, it's branches hanging with small, red fruit. A shrub crowded at it's base, laden with greenish white masses of flowers that were turning to brown. May had the same one growing by her porch, she'd said it was hydrangea. It was idyllic, and Dean said as much. Sam grunted under the weight of the stone, complaining that Dean had chosen the farthest point on purpose. Dean just grinned.

Sam returned to the car for a shovel. Dean bent over the stone, brushing off the back of it as cleanly as he could. He pulled out his crayons, selecting a black one. By the time Sam returned, he'd neatly inscribed Willard onto it, followed by Nathaniel, and below that, Grace. He figured the wax crayon was the most enduring means of writing on the stone, short of actually carving into it, and he had no means to do that. It wouldn't wash away, and probably wouldn't fade. Sam stood and admired his handiwork. "Good thinking." he smiled.

Dean looked away, embarrassed over his sentimentality. "Yeah, well; Nate was pretty attached to that stone. But I figured he should be remembered by his real name. We can just put the sin eater side up against the fence."

Sam nodded, and he quickly dug a neat slot in the turf, and slid the heavy marker in place. He straightened it up and tamped the earth down until it was steady. "There. How's that..?"

Dean said nothing. He simply nodded. Nathaniel Willard finally got his wish. He was never able to bury his mother properly. Now, at last, her name was written here, in hallowed ground, along with that of her son. Sin Eater could fade from history and memory, while Nathaniel Willard's name lived on. Finally Dean shrugged off his emotions. "OK, Sam. I guess that about does it. I wouldn't mind grabbing our stuff and hitting the road now. I'm getting a little sick of Hooterville; how about you?"

"Kinda. I'm getting tired of reintroducing myself to Angus, and I have the feeling that May's about to adopt me. But maybe we should wait a few days, so you can just chill until it's time to pull your pins."

"Nah. I can do that anywhere, Sam. I'll just mail the hardware back to Bradford. I'd rather spend some time in my car, even if I have to suffer through your little-old-lady driving."

Sam knew it was pointless to argue. They drove back to the house, and gathered their things. May was disappointed, but they couldn't be swayed. They asked her to pass along their goodbyes to Russell, and they hit the road by late afternoon. Dean's tension lessened the moment there was road under the Impala's wheels. He sighed in relative happiness, resting his head back against the seat. He may not be behind the wheel, but this was home for him, nonetheless. For now, the big picture didn't matter...both he and Sam had worked things out, and he was going to simply live day by day, at least for the next little while. He closed his eyes.

Sam glanced at him. It pleased him to see the relaxed little smile that he wore. "Which way, Dean?"

"I don't care...just away. Maybe in a direction that gets warmer."

Sam smiled. "Warmer. Sounds like plan."

* * *

><p><em>End.<em>

* * *

><p>Many thanks to you all, for reading and commenting. It always lifts me.<p>

-Mal


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